Way back in January 2012 I did a post about my total Ontario county ticks list and I'm happy to say I've finally reached my goal of 6000. I did that earlier this year just haven't had a chance to sit down and blog about it (I'm actually up to 6052 now). My most recent county tick? Lark Bunting for Frontenac county...
Anyways, some straight stats. I added species to a rather surprising 38 county lists. My biggest changes since then are:
1. Kenora - from 0 to 126 for a gain of 126 and more importantly knocking of 1 of my 3 zeros. (trips to Burnt Point and James Bay)
2. Prince Edward - from 98 to 182 for a gain of 84. Last summer I moved to with about 15 minutes of "the county" and am still adding easy stuff whenever I go there...most recently I added Scarlet Tanager and Lincoln's Sparrow at Prince Edward Point. I'm hoping I get break 200 this year.
3. Peterborough - from 122 to 202 for a gain of 80. I have been working in Peterborough now for almost 2 years AND I did a big day in Peterborough which netted me 16 species on its own.
4. Hastings - from 139 to 179 for a gain of 40. Currently my home county although most of the birds are yard birds or casual observations. The gain would have been bigger but I did some work here in 2008/2009 and worked in the north end of Hastings for a while in Bancroft. This would be a nice one to break 200 in...just need to find a good shorebird spot and spend a bit more migration time out and about.
5. Northumberland - from 177 to 213 for a gain of 36. I'm only about 30 minutes from Presqu'ile now so I'm picking up lots of easy stuff I didn't have. Still lots more to easily add.
My new top ten are:
Norfolk - 286
Essex - 257
Waterloo - 234
Northumberland - 213
Lennox and Addington - 203
Peterborough - 202
Hamilton - 190 (still need Red-eyed Vireo and lots of other common summer birds..the eBird needs alert has 32 species in the last week!)
Chatham-Kent - 186
Durham - 185 (still lots of common things I need)
Prince Edward - 182
And my worst 10:
Algoma - 0
Thunder Bay - 0
Greater Sudbury - 22
Grey - 31
York - 32 (I'll have to go hang out with Josh a bit)
Brant - 32
Huron - 36
Dufferin - 45
Peel - 50
Parry Sound - 55
With any luck I should finally get Thunder Bay and Algoma on the board this summer and a trip through southern Ontario could really boost my numbers. My goal for 2013 is to get a couple more counties over 200 (Hamilton and Prince Edward) and to get five more over 100. Getting to 6500 would be nice too. We'll see.
How is everyone else doing for total county ticks? What are your big misses?
Chronicling my birding and other outdoor explorations around Ontario and beyond!
Aren't you on your way through Algoma right now? several easy detours off hwy 17 will raise that 0 quickly!
ReplyDeleteI have no idea how many county ticks I have but I estimate about 800 ticks. The highest counties are Nipissing and Parry Sound because I live in North Bay and then Peterborough since we visit the Parker's annually and they take us to Presqu'ile. A few hundred ticks may have come from our honeymoon they took us to Craigleif, Wheatley (with a visit to Point Pelee), Long Point, Rondeau, and Bronte Park. Oh I got to visit Britannia Park in Ottawa once.
ReplyDeleteFairly modest really.