chart

By Don Bissonette

Here are the Bluebird Trail statistics from the 2025 nesting season. We collected statistics from 14 Bluebird Trails, with a total of 90 Birdhouses. Four of these trails, are the Nature Club’s Bluebird Committee trails, with a total of 20 Birdhouses. The other 10 trails are Affiliate trails.

  In the 2025 Nesting Season, we counted a total of 13 successful pairs of Eastern Bluebirds, which produced 63 Fledglings.  Also, these 14 trails hosted 55 pairs of successful pairs of Tree Swallows, which produced 234 Fledglings.    Every year, we are collecting less Bluebird trail statistics. There are less Bluebird Committee trails, less Affiliate trails and less Affiliate Monitors willing to share their Statistics with us. 

  Recently, I found a Bluebird Committee Trail Report from 1994. That year, we collected statistics from  22 trails, with a total of 231 Bluebird houses. 12 of these trails were Bluebird Committee trails, and the other 10 trails were Affiliate trails. 

  There are a few reasons for the decline. 

1.  Some of the properties were sold, and the new property owners were unwilling to allow the monitor(s) to continue visiting their properties.
2. Originally, the property was good Bluebird and Tree Swallow habitat, with large open sunny areas. Over time, trees and shrubs filled in these open areas. The trees and shrubs may have been planted by the property owners, or arrived because of natural succession. The loss of open areas, makes the property less desirable to the Bluebirds and Tree Swallows, and more desirable to the House Wrens.
3.  House Sparrows became a problem. In a few cases, I had to take down some Bluebird Committee trails, because the number of House Sparrows were overwhelming. The rise in House Sparrows numbers happens when the property owner, or his neighbours, is feeding birdseed in the Winter & early Spring. Those bird feeders attract lots of House Sparrows to the property.
4. Also, if the property owner or his neighbours have poultry, the House Sparrow population may rise. Grain is set out, to provide feed for the poultry. The House Sparrows are quick to find this grain. In time, there are lots of House Sparrows staying on the property.  I have seen House Sparrows feeding at grain feeders, inside poultry barns; they flew in the barn, through an open door, or through an open window, or through a small hole in the wall.

In the past few years, our committee was given leads on properties with good Bluebird & Tree Swallow habitat. But, there is no point in setting up new Bluebird trails, if there is no one willing to monitor these properties. At present, each of our Bluebird trail monitors has enough trails to monitor and is unable to care for any more trails. 

Thank  You to every-one, who has contributed financially to our Bluebird Committee. 

  The Ontario  Eastern  Bluebird  Society’s  Annual  General  Meeting is on Saturday, March 22, in Hamilton. For more information, visit their Facebook Page, or their Website.

  Van  Ert  Live Traps for Sale. Recently, I received a delivery of Van Ert Live Traps. They are $23.00 each.  Cash only.  (20.35 + 2.65 H.S.T. = $23.00 each). Contact me, (Don Bissonnette) if you want one, and we can arrange pick-up. If You are planning on going to the next Ontario Purple Martin Association meeting, we can meet there. Receipts provided.  Thank You to all of the Bluebird Trail monitors, who shared their 2025 trail statistics with us. Best Wishes for the 2026 Nesting Season! …  Don B. 

By Jeremy Hatt

Since 2015, birders in Essex County have kept a list of all the species found in our area during the month of February, a challenge we call the “Depths of Winter”. It was originally started to encourage local birders to get out during the coldest month of the year and to have a friendly competition amongst ourselves. 2026 proved to be one of our coldest winters in recent memory so any encouragement to get outside was welcome! Thankfully by the end of February, signs of spring had started with the arrival of dabbling ducks, Killdeer, American Robins, and lots of blackbirds.

The Depths of Winter list is primarily tallied from eBird data but reports during the period can also be posted to the Ontario Bird Alert Discord server or sent to the coordinator, Jeremy Hatt.

The total number of species tallied this year was 110, which is among the lowest number of species seen during all the years of the challenge. This is not surprising given how cold February was this year and with all inland waters and much of Lake St. Clair and Lake Erie frozen for a good portion of the month.

This year there were no new species additions to the overall Depths of Winter List.

There were some still some exciting highlights, however. On February 28, I spotted a buzzer-beater male Harlequin Duck via spotting scope off the east side of the Tip of Point Pelee. This was on a day where several new migrants arrived including American Wigeon, Northern Pintail, Green-winged Teal, Northern Shoveler, Redhead, and Canvasback.

Other highlights included a hardy Black-crowned Night-Heron overwintering at the warm water outlet of the Little River Pollution Control Plant along with a Double-crested Cormorant, Long-tailed Ducks along the Detroit River and at Point Pelee, a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker photographed at Ojibway Park, and four Common Raven reports from the Harrow/Kingsville area.

Another highlight, at least for me and ECFNC President, Kory Renaud, was achieving the Essex County “owl sweep”; seeing all six regularly-occurring owls within Essex County in a single day. On February 7, Kory and I did our annual Big Day to see as many species as possible in a single day during the winter. Starting before dawn and ending after dusk, we managed to see or hear Great Horned Owl, Long-eared Owl, Short-eared Owl, Snowy Owl, Northern Saw-Whet Owl, and Eastern Screech-Owl. This isn’t the first time this challenge has been achieved but there are very few who have managed it!

There were also a few major hybrid highlights in February, even if they don’t count towards the overall species tally. These included a Tufted Duck x scaup sp. found by me, Cameron Chevalier, and Olivia Galloway on the Detroit River from Rivervilla Park in LaSalle (second record for Essex County). A Redhead x Lesser Scaup hybrid was found by me in the same location and date (second record for Essex County). A Canvasback x Redhead hybrid was also found at Lakeview Park Marina by Cameron Chevalier (second record for Essex County). A Snow x Ross’s Goose hybrid found by Jeremy Bensette and Kate Derbyshire in the Hillman Marsh area was another great hybrid (fifth record for Essex County).

Notable misses this year included Snow Goose, Ross’s Goose, Greater White-fronted Goose, Glaucous Gull, Bonaparte’s Gull, Pied-billed Grebe, Red-headed Woodpecker, Eastern Phoebe, Brown Thrasher, Marsh Wren, Chipping Sparrow, Field Sparrow, Savannah Sparrow, and Eastern Meadowlark.

Since its inception in 2015, the Depths of Winter List stands at a total of 150 species. Historically, according to eBird, there have been 167 species recorded in Essex County in February.

By: Jeremy Hatt

16 participants attended the Detroit River outing on January 10^th, an annual event co-hosted by the Ontario Field Ornithologists (OFO) and the Essex County Field Naturalists’ Club. Kory Renaud and I led walk again this year. We had a great day with 50 species observed across 7 eBird hotspots in Windsor and Tecumseh. Temperatures stayed around 2C for the day with low winds, making it a comfortable outing. The sky remained cloudy throughout the day and ended with a mix of rain, sleet, and snow in the final hour! Our full trip report is available on eBird here: https://ebird.org/tripreport/462318.

ECFNC and OFO members birding at Little River Corridor Park – photos by Diane Naluzny

During this outing, we always hope for colder temperatures to freeze up Lake St. Clair and concentrate birds on the Detroit River but a week of mild temperatures melted all the ice on the river and lake leading up to the hike. Waterfowl numbers weren’t as high as usual but two major highlights from the day made up for it: Long-eared Owl and Northern Saw-Whet Owl, which were lifers for several attendees. 

We started the outing at Lakeview Park Marina. Highlights included a Trumpeter Swan near Peche Island, a decent-sized raft of Canvasback and Redhead, and a flyby Lesser Black-backed Gull. We then headed over to the Little River Pollution Control Plant and Park where we picked up a pair of American Wigeon and an American Kestrel. It’s always a fun time to walk along the Little River Pollution Control Plant to see what species are attempting to overwinter here, even if the walk is unfortunately odious.

After lunch we stopped at two spots along the upper Detroit River for closer views of several waterfowl species and a resident Peregrine Falcon perched next to the “A” of the Ambassador Bridge. The drive along the Riverfront is always a nice addition to the outing to see the beauty of the river and the Detroit skyline.

We finished the day with a walk through Ojibway Park where we had great looks at many Tufted Titmice, Brown Creeper, two Fox Sparrows, two Eastern Towhees, and good numbers of White-throated Sparrows, American Tree Sparrows, and Dark-eyed Juncos. Many of our members are aware of the familiar seed-piles that turn up each winter on the trails in Ojibway that attract many of the winter specialties in for close looks.

We look forward to leading this annual hike for ECFNC and OFO again next year! Thanks to everyone who attended and helped spot and count birds.