The Bombay Hook NWR Christmas Bird Count will be this Sunday, December 16. Mason, Kyle, and I will be the leaders in Area 1, which is laid out below. We are starting the count at 04:00 and will be looking and listening for owls until sunrise. We have a lot of ground to cover in various habitat types so it should play out to be an eventful morning. We are supposed to count in our area until 12:00 and then the whole refuge is fair game.

Area 1 covers the Raymond Pool (A), the visitor’s center (B), the fields west of the refuge (C), and the boardwalk trail.

Area 1 during last year’s count yielded 62 species. We are shooting for 70 species this year! Last weekend we found thousands of Snow Geese in the fields including this possible Snow x Ross’s Goose Hybrid. Also, here’s the checklist from part of the Auto Tour Loop last week:

Bombay Hook NWR, Kent, US-DE
Dec 8, 2012 3:00 PM – 3:54 PM
Protocol: Traveling
1.243 mile(s)
Comments:     Others had a SNEG and MERL. I will add more specific details later. Submitted from  BirdLog for Android v1.6
32 species (+2 other taxa)

Snow Goose  12300
Canada Goose  632
Tundra Swan  40
American Black Duck  26
Mallard  28
Northern Shoveler  47
Northern Pintail  41
Green-winged Teal  30
Bufflehead  4
Hooded Merganser  3
Ruddy Duck  43
Pied-billed Grebe  4
Great Blue Heron  5
Northern Harrier  13
Red-shouldered Hawk  1
American Coot  2
Black-necked Stilt  1
American Avocet  120
Greater Yellowlegs  2
Marbled Godwit  5
peep sp.  15
Dunlin  27
Short-billed/Long-billed Dowitcher  1
Wilson’s Snipe  1
Belted Kingfisher  2
Downy Woodpecker  1
Northern Flicker (Yellow-shafted)  1
Blue Jay  4
Marsh Wren  2
European Starling  150
Savannah Sparrow  12
Song Sparrow  5
White-crowned Sparrow  2
Red-winged Blackbird  65

View this checklist online at http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S12248733

This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (http://ebird.org)

Here are the coverage maps for the count as well: