Christmas Bird Count 2021 Results
By Lethbridge Count Compiler: Ken Orich
This year the Lethbridge CBC took place on Sunday, Dec. 19th. Eighty-two participants counted 39 areas in the city of Lethbridge and 6 country areas. Nine individuals focused their efforts on feeder counts in the city. A total of 47 species (51,267 individual birds) were tallied on count day and an additional 3 species were observed during count week. Our mean average for species observed continues to stay at 43.
Weather conditions were a bit chilly with North winds and -9°C (wind chill even colder), but participants stuck with it to make sure all areas were counted. Participants travelled 741.9 km by vehicle for 49.1 hours and walked 186.5 km spending 81.9 hours on foot. Time spent counting feeders was 15.2 hours.
Highlights
Canada Goose count remained strong with 39,366 counted
1 Greater Scaup was observed at Henderson Lake – 1st confirmed for the count
55 Bald Eagles were observed, setting a new record and beating the previous high of 54 from 2014
7 Great Horned Owls were observed setting a new record and beating the previous high of 6 from 2006 & 2017
39 Downy Woodpeckers were observed setting a new record and beating the previous high of 38 from 2019
1176 Black-billed Magpie were observed setting a new record and beating the previous high of 1005 from 2020
3 Townsend’s Solitaire’s were observed and set a 2nd best record. The high count is 7 from 2007.
3 Lapland Longspur were recorded for the first time in the count and were observed in Country Area E – Airport
1 Hoary Redpoll was observed for the 2nd time. A previous observation of 3 goes back to 2015.
1361 duck species were recorded as flyovers. I suspect they were most likely Mallards