It was a memorable year for the annual Christmas Bird Count in Fort St. James.
Organizer Joanne Vinnedge called it a "record-breaking day," with warmer temperatures and some landmark sightings.
Fourty-three species were positively identified, more than have ever been picked up in Fort St. James, with high years normally being around 30 or 33 species, according to Vinnedge.
This year's count was a bit earlier than usual in the Fort, with the count taking place on Dec. 15, the first day of the North and Central America-wide bird count.
Vinnedge herself along with a couple other birders, including photographer Dexter Hodder, saw a "Chickadee Grand Slam" which is seeing all four species of chickadee in one place at one time.
The birds were sighted at Sandra Okano's bird feeder on Stone's Bay Road. While three species of chickadee are more common in the area, the Chesnut-backed Chickadee is usually a more coastal species, and so seeing all four together is rare.
Vinnedge called it "the highlight of multiple years of birding" and said other top birders she spoke to afterwards were expressing their amazement at the sighting.
Another highlight was when Vinnedge and Hodder watched a dipper working along the shoreline on Stone's Bay, methodically flipping over aspen and cottonwood leaves looking for bugs. "It was very cool," said Vinnedge, describing the bobbing little avian.
Her one disappointment was no one on the count spotted a Eurasian Collared Dove, but she said it was still a great day for birding in Fort St.
Species Results:
Species Number
Trumpeter swan 70
Mallard 37
Lesser scaup 1
Bufflehead 4
Common goldeneye 37
Barrow’s goldeneye 1
Common merganser 5
Ruffed grouse 8
Spruce grouse 2
Bald eagle 4
Northern goshawk 2
Red-tailed hawk 1
Snowy owl 1
Northern hawk-owl 5
Downy woodpecker 28
Hairy woodpecker 36
American three-toed
woodpecker 1
Brown creeper 5
Northern flicker 9
Pileated woodpecker 6
Woodpecker (unknown) 1
Northern shrike 4
Gray jay 16
Black-billed magpie 19
American crow 27
Common raven 143
Black-capped chickadee 367
Mountain chickadee 9
Chestnut-backed
chickadee 4
Boreal chickadee 2
Red-breasted nuthatch 14
White-breasted nuthatch 1
American dipper 2
American robin 1
European starling 1
Bohemian waxwing 78
Song sparrow 1
Dark-eyed junco 4
American tree sparrow 1
Red-winged blackbird CW
Pine grosbeak 327
Common redpoll 505
Pine siskin 32
Evening grosbeak 116
House sparrow 32
Total number of Birds 1934
Total number of Species 44