Burlington CBC - Dec. 19, 2007

I participated in the Burlington Christmas Bird Count for my at least seventh year. This CBC is one of my favorites not because it really possesses any "dynamite" areas like the Lake Geneva or Lk Michigan counts have with waterfowl, but because this count area encompasses all the areas in very close proximity to my parents house and I know them very well. This year I started out at the feeders in the backyard and I was very pleasantly surprised to see a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker come in to the well-stocked peanut feeders that were also attracting a Northern Flicker, two birds I had never personally had come to our feeders here, so very good timing!
I spent the rest of the day driving various back roads in the area looking for sparrow flocks and open country birds. I had a hard time finding the true open country birds (horned lark, lapland longspur, and snow bunting) for most of the day and I'd only managed two small flocks of Horned Larks totaling 17 birds. Late in the day I did manage to find three Snow Buntings in a recently developed farm field that was fallow in preparation for a housing development... Later on I also saw a distant flock of 15 Snow Buntings where I normally find lapland longspur (whiffed on them this year).

The other major highlight of the day was a flock of 24 Eastern Bluebirds that I stumbled across...quite a large number for winter here.