2025 Frontenac Christmas Bird Count Summary

Bookended by windstorms and following a heavy downpour, Saturday, December 20, 2025, dawned cold and overcast with scattered sunny breaks. Several teams from among 43 field surveyors made their way along roads and over trails, driving 256 km and walking more than 70 km. Meanwhile, an additional 11 feeder-watchers carefully monitored bird activity around their homes and yards. Most lakes remained frozen but creeks and other areas of flowing water were open. The winds made owling nearly impossible, but one Great-horned Owl was heard along a 26 km route. Our total search effort from driving, walking, and feeder-watching was 66 hours of observation time. Over the 24-hour Frontenac CBC period, together we tallied 3,680 individual birds from 52 species.

Several species were counted at their highest numbers yet: Wild Turkey, Bohemian Waxwing, Herring Gull, Red-bellied Woodpecker, and likely also Trumpeter Swan. Diversity was impressive for both gulls and woodpeckers. Despite one Feeder-watcher noting “30+ American Goldfinch (conservative count; they are everywhere),” goldfinches were only half as abundant as usual.

Tufted Titmouse appeared again in the Frontenac circle, albeit 9.5 km directly south of last year’s bird. Same individual? Two new species [*] were added to the Frontenac CBC list this year.

At first glance, this juvenile White-crowned Sparrow was mistaken for a redpoll, and then for a Chipping Sparrow. Upon closer inspection, this bird was correctly identified as a new species for the Frontenac CBC!

Despite an abundance of open water streams, there were very few American Robins. For the second year in a row, not a single Brown Creeper was found. Other absentees included Purple Finch and Ruffed Grouse, although a grouse was seen in the census circle a day later. One Yellow-bellied Sapsucker was also noted during Count Week, despite having eluded surveyors on Count Day.

Since March 2018 when Red-headed Woodpeckers were confirmed to have overwintered in Frontenac park, survey teams have annually trekked out to locate this rare species for the Frontenac CBC. Todd Norris made the trek and took several photos of this strikingly beautiful bird: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJXmkhQFWXs

Ruffed Grouse? This species is in serious decline throughout the northeastern US states due to a lack of very young “early successional” forests. Here in Canada, grouse numbers are holding stable. According to CBC data, from 1970 to 2021 Ruffed Grouse numbers have increased ~0.17% per year! Just because we haven’t found them on our count in the past two years doesn’t mean they’re not there… they’re just hiding.