I decided to do the Duncan Christmas Bird Count on one hour of sleep and I'm still not sure it was the right call.  It's always nice to get off to a good start for the year, though, so I can't complain.  The day was pretty miserable in terms of weather, but we still managed over fifty species.  The highlights were:

150+ Ruddy Ducks

1 Canvasback

2 Western Gulls

1 American Herring Gull

1 Ring-billed Gull

I am heading back up to Duncan today because a Black-crowned Night-Heron was found on count day and that's a bird I haven't managed inside the Victoria checklist area.  I haven't got very high hopes as the access for looking for the bird is limited.  I'm hoping for some other good birds too.  There were lots of gulls, so maybe a Glaucous or Iceland Gull will be in the mix and there could be an interesting swan (at least Tundra) amongst all the Trumpeters.  I must finish getting geared up now, so I'm cutting this off.

This year some people on Vancouver Island have started a fun little competition to see how many birds people can find within a Christmas bird count circle between December 14th and February 14th and make a percentage against the five-year average of the CBC total for the area.  The competition is a little unfair for Victorians because we have the highest number of participants in Canada, so you can expect a higher species count than other places on the Island.  In fact, Victoria also has the record for highest species total in Canada also and the average count is 138.8 species over the last five years.  I haven't exactly had the best start because I missed a few days at the start being in Panama and then when I participated in the Victoria CBC, I did my usual area, the Highlands, which doesn't produce many species.  Now I am trying to make up ground, so I did a little birding around Martindale Flats today.  The highlights were:

1 Northern Shrike

1 Swamp Sparrow

2 Lincoln's Sparrows

8 Brown-headed Cowbirds

3 Greater White-fronted Geese

That's not a bad start!  I just did a quick count and it looks like I'm at around 55 species, so I'll hopefully get out and do some birding on the Victoria waterfront and perhaps Elk/Beaver Lake to get some waterfowl, shorebirds, and alcids.  I will hopefully do an update tomorrow evening.

I just thought I'd start a little blog here as it is all the rave, but I think it will also be a bit of a motivater to get me out even more than I already do.  If not, it will possibly just help me get on track to keeping better notes.  That is all trivial, though, and I hope it will just be fun and maybe I'll make some birding friends along the way… near or far.  This is an introduction, so I suppose I'll do the whole “this is who I am” bit.  My name is Jeremy and I live close to Victoria, British Columbia in Canada.  I have been birding since I was a wee boy, but have only really honed in on my birding in the last few years.  I seem to travel a fair bit from work, but I have done a few birding trips to Central America in the last three years.  In fact, I just got back from Panama last week and I'll perhaps put in an entry to summarize the whole trip when I sort out the lists and notes and pictures.  What else does one say in an intro?  Hmmm… I'm 25 and I work as a field technician and will hopefully be chipping away at a biology degree a little more in the fall.  I think I'll keep it at that.