Essex County broke 52 records for local bird sightings in 2024. From a high count of pelicans to a first nesting record for Canada to a rare and endangered owl, Cam Chevalier (BSc 2024) has the goods in his annual summary.
"The American barn owl was a huge one for us. The last estimate was that there were only five to ten pairs that breed in the province," says the master's student of integrative biology.
Grad student Cam Chevalier publishes a list of bird sightings in Essex County.
"It was on private property, but I was fortunate enough to be part of a group that was granted access. Most people would consider this a once in a lifetime opportunity in Ontario it stands out as a true rarity for us."
Another rare sighting came in the summer, when Essex County hosted the first-ever nesting blue grosbeaks in Canada. Local naturalist and birder Paul Pratt discovered a male on June 23, a female on June 30, and a juvenile on Aug. 12. Chevalier captured the first photographic evidence of the juvenile the following day. Essex had already had an exciting grosbeak earlier in the year in its first ever black-headed grosbeak, found at a private feeder in Kingsville.
Chevalier says he was lucky to find two of the three arctic terns spotted in Essex County last summer. This species performs the longest migratory journey of all animals.
"On June 19, there was a huge school group that came to the tip of Point Pelee when we were there with the arctic tern, and we got to have the kids look at the bird through binoculars. The teachers said they'd use this to teach them about migration and how this bird goes from the far reaches of the Arctic all the way to the Antarctic and yet ended up here," says Chevalier.
"I get the most out of it when I get to share the birds with people, and in that moment, I got to share the bird with these kids, and they were equally excited."
Citizen scientists or fellow birders contribute the details of their Essex County sightings on a website called eBird. Chevalier collects this data from the platform and publishes the statistics along with summaries on an Essex Birds website.
"People contribute the interesting sightings of rare birds and breeding species, and then I pull that and reformulate the information," he says.
This year Essex County had 11 provincial review species. These rarest of the rare sightings must go to a higher board for vetting. He says his goal is to continue to document the data in articles written by himself and his collaborators.
"I hope that over time, those articles will help paint us a picture of the different species."
A 2024 highlight for him was banding baby American herring gulls in Sandusky, Ohio.
"My friend Jeremy and I noticed we were getting a massive influx of these birds in Essex County. They were coming across the lake in large quantities," says Chevalier.
"In July, Jeremy and I went and helped band the fledglings, and in November in Essex County we got to see one of the birds we banded."
Chevalier reviews the data to ensure the sighting is logical and if it is rare, he makes sure it is documented appropriately. The annual summary was compiled and maintained by Alan Wormington for 40 years until his death in 2016. In 2022, Chevalier took it upon himself to start compiling the resource once again.
"I think it is a valuable resource, and I have a deep passion for the birds of Essex County," says Chevalier.
"I grew up near Ojibway Park and went there a lot as a kid and got connected with birders there and took a lot of camps there. And honestly, birding has the biggest community in nature and anywhere you go in the world there are birds."
Chevalier is currently working on his master's degree under the supervision of professor Dan Mennill. His focus is on population trends in Essex County songbirds and raptors over time. He will collect acoustic data and compare it directly to data collected in 2012 by a previous master's student, Claire Sanders.
"I hope to highlight, with this work and my master's, that we live in such an important region for biodiversity," Chevalier says.
