London CBC - December 20, 2025

 London Christmas Bird Count (CBC), December 20, 2025

Weather   -7c, feels like -12c, cold, overcast, lots of snow on ground

Time  8:00am to 1:00pm - 4 1/2 hours, a break at 10:30 to warm up at Tims

Where  Greenway Park

Distance  6.7 km

Species: 25  

Participants - 3

I went to Greenway, December 18 to see what was around.  I saw 5 Green-winged Teals and a Northern Pintail.  The Thames River was very low so rocks were showing and the island was larger with a little sand bar so ducks were resting on the sandy area.  Parts of the river was frozen so the ducks were congregated in a smaller area.  I studied the Mallards and that is how I found the female Northern Pintail.  We've had very cold weather but Dec 18 and 19 became mild and we had rain and some snow melt.  

Northern Pintail (female) seen Dec 18

The day of the CBC, December 20, the river was very high and fast flowing.  That changed on what birds we saw.  

We started at the Greenway Park parking lot across from the lookout at Thames River.  We saw the usual resident birds, the white Domestic Goose, and some Domestic Mallards.  There were a lot of Mallards, some Canada Geese and American Black Ducks mixed in....Ring-billed Gulls were flying above.  

Some of the birds we saw walking along the river were Canada Geese, Mallards, Common Mergansers (19), Hooded Mergansers (5), Common Goldeneyes (28), Bufflehead (9), and we were lucky to see one Green-winged Teal.  We didn't find the Pintail.  Apparently, there was a Pied-billed Grebe found the first of the week but I could not find it on December 18 and did not find it for CBC count.

There was one adult Bald Eagle flyover and 2 Red-tailed Hawks.

Was saw 3 Great Blue Herons flying over.

In the smaller bird category, Dark-eyed Juncos, Black-capped Chickadees, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Downy Woodpeckers, Northern Cardinals, White-breasted Nuthatch, Brown Creeper, Mourning Doves, House Sparrows and Starlings.  Just one Crow and one Blue Jay.

We missed the American Robin!

American Black Ducks

Red-tailed Hawk

Many Mallards and Canada Geese

Winter Birding in December 2025

 December 14, 2025

I have been out birding.  I'm seeing all the regular birds the last few weeks.  Winter is here as we have a lot of snow now, ponds are frozen over and the Thames River is starting to freeze in some sections.  The ducks I've seen lately are Mallards, Common Mergansers, Hooded Mergansers, Common Goldeneyes, Buffleheads and American Black Ducks.

Red-tailed Hawk

American Robins finding a little opening in the frozen pond for a drink.

Hooded Merganser

Bald Eagle

Hundreds of Mallards and Canada Geese in the parks.  Someone was feeding them corn.

Common Merganser

This was this morning, December 14, really cold, feeling like -22c and heavy snow squalls.  These poor Robins.