Zoochat Big Year 2022

Coelacanth18 said:
Today was the first day so far this year that I didn't pick up a new bird (unsurprising - I avoided outside like the plague because of the brutal cold snap), so here are my odds 'n ends updates from this past week:

Birds
29. Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus)
30. Red-shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus)
31. Pied-billed Grebe (Podilymbus podiceps)
32. American Robin (Turdus migratorius)
33. European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris)

I made an attempt at looking for Belted Kingfisher, but unfortunately all I got were a few of the grebes.
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Picked up a few raptors and another mammal on my traveling between locations again. Unfortunately it remains to be seen how much birding I actually get up to in the next few weeks; the winter cold of the East Coast is not my friend.

Birds
34. Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura)
35. Black Vulture (Coragyps atratus)
36. Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis)

Mammals
2. White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus)
 
Not having any chance to get outside this weekend, I spent Friday's lunch on a stroll around a local country park, where I hoped pick up some of my many missing common finches, or maybe a jay or sparrowhawk. In the end I added only one species...

Mammals:
6. Brown Rat - Rattus norvegicus

:)
 
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DesertRhino150 said:
Put out the bird feeder for a couple of days, which got me three new birds - two of them interested in the feeder itself and the other in the 'clients' at the bird feeder:

36. Common chaffinch Fringilla coelebs
37. Great spotted woodpecker Dendrocopos major
38. Eurasian sparrowhawk Accipiter nisus
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Managed to see another bird of prey flying over the garden and spotted a typical urban bird from the car while going to the hairdressers:

39. Common kestrel Falco tinnunculus
40. Feral pigeon Columba livia
 
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Went on a nice walk by a beach and spotted a few common city animals plus one species I’ve never seen before!

Mammals

2. Red squirrel 15/1/22

Birds

11. Hawk owl 15/1/22
12. Mallard 15/1/22
13. Feral pigeon 15/1/22
 
A few more local additions. The first three passerines were from a short walk in my local patch last week. The other three are from another try today to see wintering swans.

Swans of three species (Mute, Bewick's, Whooper) winter in the polders relatively close to where I live. The latter two are generally scarce and getting scarcer, but usually there are a few places they are present throughout winter. Not this year. All three species are present but in (far) lower numbers than usual and they're also less faithful to their favourite foraging areas. But at least they're there now, and no-one knows what next winter will bring. Having set my mind on 300 birds It would be stupid to miss out on two species I generally think of as guaranteed, so after a failed attempt earlier I tried again today. I also added in two birding locations along the river Meuse/Maas, one to find both Northern Pintail and Caspian Gull which are steadily present there, and the other which is a good spot for Water Pipit. Now guess how many of the five target species I saw!

When I stepped outside there was quite some fog but the weather forecast said I would clear soon. First I went to the polders for swans, so I zigzagged around the countryside and inspected every flock of swans I saw. There were occasionally Mute Swans in pairs or small groups but most swans were seen in half a dozen flocks of between 20 and 40 individuals (sidenote: in some winters we have flocks of Bewick's this size and flocks of Mutes in the hundreds, so this is rather poor!). After the first four flocks which only had Mute Swans I finally found a flock with other swans and those delightfully turned out to be seven Bewick's Swans. I also spied a little party of Tree Sparrows while scanning one of the swan flocks so that was neat.

The fog however did not clear and became only denser. I tried a few other places for Whooper Swans but they were nowhere to be seen. There was a surprise Water Pipit hopping around along a ditch when I was checking out a few geese, so I got that species at least. The next destination would be a small area of marshland to find the pintails and gulls. The fog however was now so incredibly dense that all gulls were just vague outlines, and I could only identify the ducks on my side of the closest waterway and there were no pintails between them. Given the dense fog and the fact that I had already seen a Water Pipit I decided not to go to the last location and instead head home early.

So far it has been a lot of hard work to actually see the birds this year but what's the fun if everything goes according to plan, right?

Birds
098. European Crested Tit, Lophophanes cristatus
099. Willow Tit, Poecile montanus
100. Goldcrest, Regulus regulus
101. Eurasian Tree Sparrow, Passer montanus
102. Bewick's Swan, Cygnus columbianus
103. Water Pipit, Anthus spinoletta
 
Mammals
3 Grey Seal Halichoerus grypus

Birds
62 Oystercatcher Haematopus ostralegus
63 Turnstone Arenaria interpres
64 Goosander Mergus merganser
65 Sparrowhawk Accipiter nisus
66 Reed Bunting Emberiza schoeniclus
67 Siskin Spinus spinus
68 Common Scoter Melanitta nigra
69 Fulmar Fulmarus glacialis
70 Iceland Gull Larus glaucoides
71 Shag Phalacrocorax aristotelis
 
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Nothing too long or impressive, just a few animals I spotted this past week. I actually spotted the Anna's hummingbird in my backyard and it looked like she was building a nest in our palm tree, hopefully that's the plan! Another one built a nest and raised her chicks in my backyard last spring, and I'm wondering if this is the same one.

Birds:
1) California Gull (Larus californicus)
2) Anna’s Hummingbird (Calypte anna)
3) Common Ground Dove (Columbina passerina)
4) Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos)
5) Snowy Egret (Egretta thula)
6) American Coot (Fulica americana)

Mammals:
1) Brush Rabbit (Sylvilagus bachmani)
2) California Ground Squirrel (Otospermophilus beecheyi)
3) Coyote (Canis latrans)
4) Virginia Opossum (Didelphis virginiana)
 
WhistlingKite24 said:
An exciting way to start the year with a trip to Maiala which is part of D'Aguilar National Park. The antechinus was the clear highlight of my visit.

Mammals
01) Common Brushtail Possum, Trichosurus vulpecula
02) Black Flying Fox, Pteropus alecto
03) Subtropical Antechinus, Antechinus subtropicus
04) Red-legged Pademelon, Thylogale stigmatica
05) Red-necked Pademelon, Thylogale thetis

Birds
55) Eastern Koel, Eudynamys orientalis
56) Little Pied Cormorant, Microcarbo melanoleucos
57) Laughing Kookaburra, Dacelo novaeguineae
58) Torresian Kingfisher, Todiramphus sordidus
59) Striated Heron, Butorides striata
60) Mangrove Honeyeater, Lichenostomus fasciogularis
61) Noisy Friarbird, Philemon corniculatus
62) Australian Pelican, Pelecanus conspicillatus
63) Silver Gull, Chroicocephalus novaehollandiae
64) Brown Gergyone, Gerygone mouki
65) Eastern Spinebill, Acanthorhynchus tenuirostris
66) White-browed Scrubwren, Sericornis frontalis
67) Satin Bowerbird, Ptilonorhynchus violaceus
68) Eastern Yellow Robin, Eopsaltria australis
69) Lewin’s Honeyeater, Meliphaga lewinii
70) Yellow-throated Scrubwren, Sericornis citreogularis
71) Black-faced Monarch, Monarcha melanopsis
72) Rufous Fantail, Rhipidura rufifrons
73) Pale-yellow Robin, Tregellasia capito
74) Green Catbird, Ailuroedus crassirostris
75) Wompoo Fruit-Dove, Ptilinopus magnificus
76) Russet-tailed Thrush, Zoothera heinei

Reptiles
01) Asian House Gecko, Hemidactylus frenatus

Invertebrates
5) Variable Ladybird, Coelophora inaequalis
6) Zebra Blue, Leptotes plinius
7) Celtis Leaf Beetle, Menippus cynicus
8) Common Crow, Euploea core
9) Wandering Percher, Diplacodes bipunctata
10) Scarlet Percher, Diplacodes haematodes
11) Common Eggfly, Hypolimnas bolina
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I was very pleased today to find at least six tiny Eastern Blue-tongue Lizards in my backyard. They remained well-hidden in the leaf litter but it's nice to know they are still breeding locally as it's been a while since I last saw them in the neighbourhood.

Reptiles
02) Eastern Blue-tongue Lizard, Tiliqua scincoides
 
the racoon has spoken said:
A couple days back, I decided to join my half-brother and mother up north on a fishing trip, in hopes of getting more life/year birds. Whilst most of those that I did see ended up being birds which are common around the suburbs I live, still got quite a few year and life birds which's great. Driving up north through the countryside, and a quick pitstop netted me the first few non-lifers of this update, and I gotta say swamp harriers are just a quintessential part of the countryside, whilst I never got that good views, being in a speeding car and all, they have real majestic silhouettes and only wish I got a better look. Another quintessential part of NZ highways, are the sheer abundance of possum roadkill scattered directly on the roadside. their rotund shapes resembling a portrait of Westerners which you'd see in some 1950's cartoon from the Eastern Bloc. Also may have seen a kookaburra whilst driving near Whangarei, but all I could discern was a kingfisher shape which I'm almost certain was larger than the sacred's I saw later on, but I'm not counting such a poor viewing for my year or life list.

By the time I'd arrived in Whangarei, it was already early evening, and I had a walk through a reserve which apparently had wild kiwi and long-tailed bat! Entering and immediately getting great views of kereru, I'd thought there was only going to be great things ahead. And then hiking through for 30 minutes I saw literally nothing, only exiting the reserve I netted a fantail for my list. And I wasn't allowed to go there to try spotlight anything, but I'd still love trying to go there again.

The next day had an early start at 6am, boarding the small boat, with small rusty orange blobs immediately seen upon leaving the harbour confidently id'ed to belong to NZ dotterel, although they were piss poor viewings which is quite sad for a lifer and a really nice one at that. Pied shag, flocks of terns and Buller's Shearwater were all seen whilst the boat was plowing through the sea, probably with some fluttering and diving petrels mixed in which I couldn't id, on account to not only being unfamiliar with a newly pair bought of binocs and the constant rocking of the small craft, but also to my laughable amount of knowledge on the seabirds themselves, leading to me most likely missing out on a ton of a lot of lifers/year birds. Though the beauty of the rising sun dazzling off the waves as shearwaters majestically glide and always seem to be just in the brink of falling in the blue but rise up at the last moment, skimming the open seas, it was truly a sight to behold. Upon reaching the fishing spot I was surprised to find that we were literally on the coast of the Hen and Chicken Islands, which's really interesting considering that it was the last stronghold of North Island Saddleback, and provided one of a few offshore islands which still had wild tuatara, never scanned the islands with my binocs and any viewing would've been garbage anyways but the thought of seeing a saddleback still lingered in my head. Anchored on the islands, gulls abounded, with a pair especially minute of fluttering shearwaters diving and swimming directly next to the boat. It astounds me how these thrush/blackbird size birds are even able to brave the rough winds of the seas, let alone crossing the Tasman Sea to Australia, it astounds me how these birds aren't grounded to the most secluded and protected of coves. (Still absolutely great and really fun to watch birds tough!) An hour later, after a quick nap the avifauna around the boat had completely transformed, with hordes of aggressive flesh-footed shearwaters dominating the waters around the boat, their abundance and pluckiness being especially proven, when ten of them were caught by the fishing lines! With once three being caught on the same line!! However I did get to watch a small storm petrel bound and weave through the shearwaters right next to the boat, which I initially thought was a fairy prion, but can be sure of my id after finding out no other similar birds occur up in Whangarei. Gannet was spotted soaring, although sadly never got to see it dive, common dolphin also surrounded the boat for a bit, always coming in pairs I estimate there were around 12? dolphins surrounding the boat during the entire encounter, with one even breaching and looking quite pinkish in the light. Tough I came away from the sighting feeling, dissatisfied, which I don't understand considering they were pretty goddamn good sightings of them, but I guess I just don't find dolphins interesting. Coming back from the islands, reef heron was spotted foraging on the rocks at the wharf's mouth, and SIPO's and flocks of brown shorebird jobs occupying where the dotterel's where, but my poor id skills and the boat zooming almost immediately way lead to none of them going on my life or year list. On the way back from Whangarei came across a sign, promoting NZ, to be called NZ instead of Aotearoa which I find frankly quite disgusting and stupid at the same time. With anyone with this mindset clearly being a Dutch spy, working for their eventual coup where everyone under 6 foot 5 will be culled and we'll all be forced to wear wooden shoes and buy tulips or whatever they do in the Netherlands.


Birds
15. European Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis)
16. Swamp Harrier (Circus approximans)
17. Spotted Dove (Spilopelia chinensis)
18. White-faced Heron (Egretta novaehollandiae)
19. Masked Lapwing (Vanellus miles)
20. Paradise Shelduck (Tadorna variegata)
21. Kereru (Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae)
22. NZ Fantail (Rhipidura fuliginosa)
23. New Zealand Dotterel (Charadrius obscurus)
24. Pied Shag (Phalacrocorax varius)
25. White-fronted Tern (Sterna striata)
26. Buller's Shearwater (Puffinus bulleri)
27. Fluttering Shearwater (Puffinus gavia)
28. Flesh Footed Shearwater (Puffinus carneipes)
29. White-faced Storm Petrel (Pelagodroma marina)
30. Australasian Gannet (Morus serrator)
31. South Island Pied Oystercatcher (Haematopus finschi)
32. Reef Heron (Egretta sacra)

Mammals
2. Common Dolphin (Delphinus delphis)

Inverts
7. Buff-tailed Bumblebee (Bombus terrestris)
8. Honeybee (Apis mellifera)
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Birds
33. Silvereye (Zosterops lateralis)

Inverts
9. Gibson Cockroach (Drymaplaneta semivitta)
 
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birdsandbats said:
Birds
66. Ring-billed Gull Larus delawarensis
67. Ruddy Turnstone Arenaria interpres
68. Purple Sandpiper Calidris maritima
69. Red-breasted Merganser Mergus serrator
70. Great Black-backed Gull Larus marinus
71. Harlequin Duck Histrionicus histrionicus
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Birds
72. Tufted Titmouse Baeolophus bicolor
 
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red river hog said:
Mammals:

1. Eastern Gray Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis)
2. North American Beaver (Castor canadensis)
3. Raccoon (Procyon lotor)
4. White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus)

Birds:

1. American Crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos)
2. American Robin (Turdus migratorius)
3. Black Vulture (Coragyps atratus)
4. Canada Goose (Branta canadensis)
5. Common Starling (Sturnus vulgaris)
6. Cooper’s Hawk (Accipiter cooperi)
7. Dark-eyed Junco (Junco hyemalis)
8. House Sparrow (Passer domesticus)
9. Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos)
10. Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis)
11. Ring-billed Gull (Laura delawarensis)
12. Rock Pigeon (Columba livia)
13. Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura)

Mammals: 4
Birds: 13
Total: 17
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Mammals:

5. Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes)

Birds:

14. Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia)
15. Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis)
16. Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura)

Invertebrates:

1. Great Black Wasp (Sphex pensylvanicus)
2. Brown Marmorated Stink Bug (Halyomorpha halys)

Mammals: 5
Birds: 16
Invertebrates: 2
Total: 23
 
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American Robin (Turdus migratorius)
Red-Bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus)
European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris)
Downy Woodpecker (Picoides pubescens)
House Sparrow (Passer domesticus)
Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata)

Mammals: 1
Birds: 10
Reptiles: None
Amphibians: None
Fish: None
Invertebrates: None
 
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Great Argus said:
Well a pretty slow start so far, but it's been cold and wet so a lot of species aren't showing real well (except the robins who have been here in the hundreds, the most I've seen around during winter in a few years. Hoping to pick up a Varied Thrush out of the flocks but no luck yet). Went down to the local waterfowl hotspot today and was sorely disappointed. Lots of ducks but primarily species I already saw (Bufflehead and Ruddy), and no grebes at all. Common Goldeneye and the fact I hadn't picked up any gulls yet saved it in terms of additions. Besides a Bald Eagle next to their nest near the freeway on the way over.

Birds:

38. Cooper’s Hawk (Accipiter cooperi)
39. Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus)
40. American Coot (Fulica americana)
41. Common Goldeneye (Bucephala clangula)
42. Ring-billed Gull (Larus delewarensis)
43. California Gull (Larus californicus)
44. American Herring Gull (Larus argenteus)
45. Feral Rock Pigeon (Columba livia)

1-45-0-0-0-1
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Got quite a few added in, but missing a good handful I should have by now. Red-shouldered Hawk, Great Blue Heron, Great Egret, and Song Sparrow so far elusive. The Great Horned owl pair I'm hearing about every other night, but not got eyes on them yet.

Other than that not bad though, already with two reptile species (the lizard still hibernating and chanced across it), and a snail I'm still trying to ID. A California Vole collecting nesting material out of my lawn was an interesting surprise. I've got a Red-breasted x Red-naped Sapsucker hybrid hanging around as well.

Mammals:

2. California Vole (Microtus californicus)

Birds:

46. Anna’s Hummingbird (Calypte anna)
47. Bewick’s Wren (Thyromanes bewickii)
48. Belted Kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon)
49. Red-breasted Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus ruber)
50. Lesser Goldfinch (Spinus psaltria)
51. White-throated Sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis)
52. Mute Swan (Cygnus olor)
53. Greater White-front Goose (Anser albifrons)
54. American Wigeon (Mareca americana)
55. Lincoln’s Sparrow (Melospiza lincolnii)

Reptiles:

1. Western Pond Turtle (Actinemys marmorata)
2. Western Fence Lizard (Sceleporus occidentalis)

Invertebrates:

2. European Honeybee (Apis mellifera)
3. Pillbug (Armadillum vulgare)

2-55-2-0-0-3
 
Birds
25. Red-tailed Hawk Buteo jamaicensis

Invertebrates
6. Bathroom Moth Fly Clogmia albipunctata
7. Northern House Mosquito Culex pipiens
 
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