GBBC 2022 Day 3: A Quiet Day

Day 3 is complete. I wasn’t sure what I’d be doing for day 3 initially, but we did get a little birding in today. We were our running errands and had lunch at Keyes Memorial Park in Milford. There’s a parking lot that faces the Souhegan River so we observed from the car since the highs for today were only in the 20s. Despite it being sunny and seemingly nicer weather than days 1 and 2, it was pretty quiet.

Keyes Memorial Park, Milford

• 2 Blue Jays
• 1 Dark-eyed Junco
• 2 Rock Pigeons

Site Total: 3 species, 5 individuals

We did see a few other species in different locations:

• 2 Red-tailed Hawks
• 6 American Crows
• 1 Common Raven
• 2 Black-capped Chickadees
• 1 Northern Mockingbird

So overall we saw 8 species today. It was probably one of the least active Great Backyard Bird Count days for us but that’s ok. I feel like today demonstrated one of the main purposes of the count: to know which birds are around and which birds aren’t.

Yesterday when it started snowing during our walk around Mine Falls my husband said, “Why do they even do this count in February? It’s such a bad time to do it and it’s too cold.” February seems like a strange time, but there’s a purpose for this particular time of year. Scientists want to know where the birds are (and aren’t) before spring migration begins in early March. And it’s just as important to know what birds you’re not seeing in an area. So having days where we don’t see much (or any birds at all!) can be a good thing and still helpful to science. Over time we can see if there’s consistently few birds in a specific area or if it changes from year to year. I’m just glad to have gone birding at all to be honest 😁.

Tomorrow is the last day of the 2022 GBBC! There’s still time to get some more counts in or start if you haven’t had time to count yet. I’ll keep you updated on what tomorrow brings. Happy birding!

GBBC 2022 Day 2: Mine Falls Park

Today turned out a little differently than I expected, but we were still able to take a walk at Mine Falls Park. It was in the mid-30s and cloudy. Shortly after the start of our walk it started to lightly snow. Not too many species out today, but we saw a few. Later in the day we ended up having some intense snow squalls, so I’m glad the snow was light while birding.

Mine Falls Park, Nashua

• 1 Red-tailed Hawk
• 1 Blue Jay
• 1 Common Merganser
• 30 European Starlings
• 26 Rock Pigeons
• 1 White-breasted Nuthatch

Site Total: 6 species, 60 individuals

Other species we saw today while out and about included Mallards, a Mourning Dove, and a Black-capped Chickadee, bring our total species count of the day to 9.

I’m not sure what the rest of our weekend will bring, but it might be some backyard birding for me. I just checked the eBird website and worldwide 6,016 species have been reported so far. That’s over half of the world’s bird species in 2 days! I wonder how many we’ll reach through Monday.

How is everyone’s bird count going so far? Did you see anything interesting? Tell me about it in the comments!

GBBC 2022 Day 1: Rye

I hope everyone had a great first day of the 2022 Great Backyard Bird Count!

We are off to a good start this weekend with our trip to Rye. The original plan was to just go to Odiorne Point State Park, but we actually went to 4 different locations. The main reason for the change in plans was the wind. It was relatively warm today (about 45 degrees…that’s pretty warm for us right now haha!) but the winds were at least 25+ miles per hour. 2022 is our son’s (“Baby Birder”) first GBBC, but we didn’t want him out in the wind too long, so we did multiple locations with shorter watching times. Besides it being his first count, we had another interesting first, plus it was a 3 merganser day.

Odiorne Point State Park

Of course gulls and sea ducks don’t care about the wind, so we spotted a few species. Surprisingly, we didn’t see any Common Eiders today. Since moving to New England we constantly see them, so it was kind of refreshing to see other ducks instead (nothing again CEs, but they were more of a novelty in NJ…).

• 10 Canada Geese
• 2 Common Goldeneye
• 8 Red-breasted Merganser
• 4 Ring-billed Gull
• 1 Common Loon
• 1 Blue Jay
• 2 Black-capped Chickadees
• 1 Northern Mockingbird
• 3 Eastern Bluebirds

Site Total: 9 species, 32 individuals

Northern Mockingbird trying to avoid the wind (Photo by BirdNation)

We had an interesting GBBC “first” today…a dead bird on the beach. It looks like an alcid. Our guess is that it’s a nonbreeding Common Murre, but it’s a little difficult to tell. Anyone have any guesses? (Let me know what you think in the comments). It obviously doesn’t count on our life list since it’s dead, but if it is a Murre at least we got a good look at it for when we see a live one. RIP little guy.

Mystery Alcid? (Photos by David Horowitz)

Coves south of Odiorne and Parsons Creek Saltmarsh

Since the winds were harsh and unforgiving it made sense that many birds were further inland. We spotted some birds in the coves south of Odiorne Point SP and at Parsons Creek Saltmarsh across from Wallis Sands Beach.

• 35 Canada Geese
• 36 Mallards
• 4 Hooded Mergansers
• 6 Ring-billed Gulls
• 1 American Crow
• 5 American Black Ducks

Site Total: 6 species, 87 individuals

Rye Harbor State Park

• 25 Surf Scoters
• 1 Long-tailed Duck
• 6 Ring-billed Gulls
• 10 Herring Gulls

Site Total: 4 species, 48 Individuals

Other Highlights

On our way to and from Rye we observed a few incidental species. We saw multiple Red-tailed Hawks, many groups of Rock Pigeons, and Common Mergansers. Therefore we saw all 3 North American merganser species today (Common, Red-breasted, and Hooded). This count was also special for me because like I mentioned earlier, it’s Baby Birder’s first bird count. He doesn’t notice most of the bird yet since he’s so little but I’m glad that he can join us. He loves going on adventures and especially loves sitting in his backpack carrier. It was windy, but he still had a smile on his face :-).

So between our incidental sightings and the 4 Rye locations, we saw a total of 18 species. I’m looking forward to the next few days of the count.

Did you go birding on day 1 of the Great Backyard Bird Count? Tell me what you saw in the comments!

Great Backyard Bird Count 2022!

Hi everyone! This weekend is the Great Backyard Bird Count!

It’s really fun and easy to participate. Go birding in any location for at least 15 minutes any time between Friday February 18th and Monday February 21. Count the birds you can identify and submit your results on eBird. The best part is you can go birding as much as you want!

I hope you can participate! I’m super excited about this year’s count because it’s Baby Birder’s first GBBC 😁. We’ll let you know what we find on our bird adventures! Happy birding!