"A Birding we will go"

a birding we will go,  hi- ho the dairy- o’ a birding we will go”.  That’s practically what we’ve been singing for the last few weeks.   On the 18^th of December we had the pleasure of taking part in the first official Christmas Bird Count for Williamsburg, KY.  We traveled over 89 miles and spotted 77 species.  Among the 77 species that were seen, the most favored by our crew was the Wilson’s Snipe we spotted as were looking for a belted king fisher that was serenading us, on Tidal Wave Road. We sat mesmerized and in disbelieve for about 20 minutes as they never moved from their spot, allowing us to get lots of good pictures.  I don’t know about you, but snipe hunting was always joked about when I was a kid.  The old prank was a practical joke that involves experienced people making fun of credulous newcomers by giving them an impossible or imaginary task, along with a preposterous method of catching it, such as running around the woods carrying a bag or making strange noises such as banging rocks together. 

   

On December 31^st 2010. We did the 3rd Official Annual London Christmas Bird Count, as a group we saw 66 species, and amazingly we saw and photographed two more snipe off Ky. 521.   We just feel tremendously lucky and blessed at all the species we saw.   The numbers were down quite a bit in water birds, but we had a great day in our 15 mile radius which included, Levi Jackson, some of Wood Creek, and Laurel Lake as well as many country roads, neighborhoods, and cemeteries.   We were joined by the Somerset Bird Club, a local teenager, Carlo Shivel, from London, and Dave Powell a gentleman from Floyd County.   We had several people from the community stop by Burkmann’s Backyard Birds to pick up checklist to participate in their own backyard if they lived within the 15 mile radius that we had designated.  The dead line for those checklist to be turn in to us is February 1^st 2011.

The last Christmas Bird Count we participated in was on January 1^st 2011, Carlo Shivel, Dave Powell and several other groups met in Nancy, Kentucky at 7:30 a.m. to do the count with the Somerset Bird Club, On that day the group saw a total of 88 species, no snipe unfortunately, but we did get several ring billed gulls, a gadwall, lots of great blue herons and several Canada geese.   By 5:30 p.m. it was just getting dark and we met to collect our numbers.  

What a great way to end a year and start a New Year, doing something we love and adding species to our life lists.