Reports

Groups led by Robert Koch walked the Lumberton campus and woods in the morning and the Medford campus and woods in the afternoon of December 27, 2020. The day’s highlight was a group of three Bald Eagles, possibly a family, as they perched in the evening light in the trees between Lumberton and Creekview.

It was a great day to count the birds!! Bright and sunny day with calm winds and temperatures ranging from mid-40’s to low 50’s. The usual Winter population of song birds was present although some birds, like the Great Horned Owl seen on consecutive days on its roost, were missing. The variety and number of ducks were also lower than the past few censuses.

We started our count in the community garden area under bright sun and a chilly 24 F. Fortunately it was a dead calm day so the wind-chill factor was negligible. Most of the birds we expected to see were present but there were also unexpected misses.

We began our census under gray skies and cool weather and it remained such throughout. However, it turned out to be a rather birdy morning as we totaled 28 species and 574 individuals.

The 20th Winter Bird Census was conducted on a bright and sunny day with winds increasing through the morning. The high winds might have accounted for the low count of song and woodland birds.

On December 23 2019, the Medford Leas birders contributed a day’s censusing to the Audubon Christmas Bird Count.

The Medford Leas Birders set out to get some idea of the spring migrants that visit our campuses, as well as recording some numbers on our resident populations. Overall we totaled 30 species on each campus.

The ML Birders had to postpone their count by a day due to inclement weather. However, a late afternoon walk on the count day did garner three raptors and one duck species.