2024 - Lifer - Black-billed Magpie

Black-billed Magpie - January 5, 2024

Unmistakable.  A largish black and white bird with a very long tail and flashing white patches on the wing tips when flying.  Black head, breast and bill, white belly and white wing tips, very long blue-greenish sheen tail.  They are 19 inches long as a American Crow is 21 inches long.  Magpies are omnivores, taking a wide variety of food including carrion and refuse.  

This bird has been seen since December at the London Landfill Site, South London.  

The magpie is common Western North America. The odd one has been seen in Ontario in recent years.  

I saw the magpie in a tree with four crows.  

Bird of the Year 2023

The Bird of the Year 2023 for me is the Tricolored Heron found in Greenway Park June 2023.  

It was poking around in the rocks in the middle of Thames River.  

It's a small heron 26 in (half the size of a Great Blue Heron).  A very slender heron with a long neck and bill, mostly bluish above and some blue and rusty brown on the neck, white crown plumes and pale rump plumes.  

They are normally found Eastern and Southern USA, Mexico, Central America, West Indies and Northern coasts of South America.  I've seen them in Florida.

I have been birding long enough that it use to be called Louisiana Heron.

London CBC, December 16, 2023

 London Christmas Bird Count (CBC), December 16, 2023

Weather   2c to 6c, overcast, E winds 19km/h, no snow on ground

Time  7:45am to 12:15pm - 4 1/2 hours

Distance - 6.9 km

Species: 27  

Participants - 4

We started at the Greenway Park parking lot past the off leash dog parks to the lookout area.  It was 7:45am, sunrise 7:50am.  It was a quiet start as the birds were not up and about yet.  We were hoping to hear Great Horned Owls but with no luck.  At the river, Ring-billed Gulls were flying around and saw one Herring Gull.  Lots of Mallards and Canada Geese in the water at the lookout area to Wonderland Rd bridge.  A Bald Eagle flew over to the west.  At the lookout area, the usual resident birds were there.  The white Domestic Goose, Domestic Mallards and 2 Cayuga Ducks. 

We continued walking along the river going East.  

Some of the birds we saw, Canada Geese (close to 500 in total), Mallards (200), Common Mergansers (6 females), Hooded Mergansers (a male and female), one Great Blue Heron, another Bald Eagle flying over and a Red-tailed Hawk.  It was nice to see 2 Golden-crowned Kinglets, American Goldfinches, Dark-eyed Juncos, Black-capped Chickadees, Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Downy Woodpeckers, a Hairy Woodpecker, Northern Cardinals, White-breasted Nuthatches, 3 Carolina Wrens, Mourning Doves, American Crows, Blue Jays, House Sparrows and Starlings.  There were up to 20 American Robins.

Like last year, we saw an opossum but it was dead on the ground under heavy bush.  Maybe a hawk dropped it.