This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Java Buzz by Elliotte Rusty Harold. Original Post: #476 Inca Dove Feed Title: Mokka mit Schlag Feed URL: http://www.elharo.com/blog/feed/atom/? Feed Description: Ranting and Raving Latest Java Buzz Posts Latest Java Buzz Posts by Elliotte Rusty Harold Latest Posts From Mokka mit Schlag

For birders the most important part of the solstice season is not presents under the tree or turkey (at least not domestic turkey) but rather the bird counts that end one year and start the next and that have done so for 110 years now. The annual Christmas Bird Count takes place globally for a couple of weeks around Christmas. You can usually find one near pretty much any significant human habitation. This year I did the Brooklyn count on the Saturday before Christmas, the Central Park count on the Sunday before Christmas, and then flew to New Orleans for the New Orleans East count on the Saturday after Christmas (and also to visit family, I feel compelled to mention). It’s especially fun to do bird counts in areas you don’t know all that well, because you’re virtually guaranteed to find something interesting and new.

On Saturday the interesting and new bird for me was an Inca Dove, or rather four of them I spotted in a Live Oak tree in a vacant lot along Hayne Boulevard across the street from Lake Pontchartrain. No photos I’m afraid. On bird counts I usually don’t bring a camera so I can concentrate on finding and counting the birds rather than on photographing them.

Overall, we tallied about 90 or so species in our section of the count circle. That’s somewhat under the 101 we saw back in 2006, but that year we also covered large chunks of Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge and a Mangrove Cuckoo found by another team. This year we just covered Lake Pontchartrain and the surrounding suburban areas, so we able to do a smaller area in more depth.

I don’t have the final tally numbers yet, but the species list is roughly:

1. Gadwall
2. Mallard
3. Blue-winged Teal
4. Ring-necked Duck
5. Lesser Scaup
6. Greater Scaup (*)
7. Bufflehead
8. Common Goldeneye
9. Hooded Merganser
10. Red-breasted Merganser
11. Ruddy Duck
12. Common Loon
13. Pied-billed Grebe
14. Horned Grebe
15. American White Pelican
16. Brown Pelican
17. Double-crested Cormorant
18. Anhinga
19. Great Blue Heron
20. Great Egret
21. Snowy Egret
22. Little Blue Heron
23. Tricolored Heron
24. Cattle Egret
25. Black-crowned Night-Heron
26. White Ibis
27. Turkey Vulture
28. Osprey
29. Red-shouldered Hawk
30. Red-tailed Hawk
31. American Kestrel
32. Common Moorhen
33. American Coot
34. Black-bellied Plover
35. Semipalmated Plover
36. Killdeer
37. Sanderling (*)
38. Spotted Sandpiper
39. Dunlin (*)
40. Ruddy Turnstone
41. Wilson’s Snipe
42. Laughing Gull
43. Ring-billed Gull
44. Herring Gull
45. Forster’s Tern
46. Caspian Tern (*)
47. Royal Tern
48. Black Skimmer
49. Rock Pigeon
50. Eurasian Collared-Dove
51. White-winged Dove
52. Mourning Dove
53. Inca Dove
54. Monk Parakeet
55. Belted Kingfisher
56. Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
57. Downy Woodpecker
58. Northern Flicker
59. Eastern Phoebe
60. Great Horned Owl (*)
61. Loggerhead Shrike
62. Bell’s Vireo (*)
63. Blue-headed Vireo
64. Blue Jay
65. American Crow
66. Fish Crow
67. Tree Swallow
68. Carolina Chickadee
69. Carolina Wren
70. House Wren
71. Golden-crowned Kinglet (*)
72. Ruby-crowned Kinglet
73. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
74. Gray Catbird (*)
75. Northern Mockingbird
76. European Starling
77. American Pipit
78. Orange-crowned Warbler
79. Yellow-rumped Warbler
80. Pine Warbler
81. Prairie Warbler (*)
82. Savannah Sparrow
83. Song Sparrow
84. Seaside Sparrow (*)
85. Swamp Sparrow
86. White-throated Sparrow
87. Northern Cardinal
88. Boat-tailed Grackle
89. American Goldfinch
90. House Finch (*)
91. House Sparrow

(If it’s starred I didn’t see it myself, but others in the group did.)