There were a few unexpected avian developments during the 84th annual Woodstock Christmas Bird Count held on Dec. 16 last year.

In total 37,854 birds were counted by the Woodstock Field Naturalists’ Club, the second highest species count ever.

Count co-organizer Richard Skevington said the numbers reveal that there are large numbers of birds around, but only in certain areas.

“The birds were where there was food and open water,” he said.

Twenty-four participants and 12-feeder watchers counted several species that had never been spotted before during the count included the Common raven, which was seen near both Beachville and Drumbo.

“It’s normally a northern bird,” Skevington said.

The Sandhill crane, spotted near Drumbo, was also a rare addition to the local count, likely due to an abundance of food.

“It was something we didn’t expect,” he said. “They were walking around with the Canada geese.”

Other rare birds on the count included the Cackling goose, American Wigeon, Hermit thrush, Bohemian waxwing, Chipping sparrow, White-crowned sparrow, Rusty blackbird and Red crossbill.

“The Chipping sparrow is very seldom seen but all of a sudden they are being seen in quite a few areas,” Skevington said. “They should have been down in the southern hemisphere. Why they are still here is beyond me.”

Skevington noted that there has been a large decline in grassland, native sparrows due to a decrease in habitat and pesticide use.

One of the rarest birds ever discovered during the local count was a Western meadowlark determined to have observed at a Hickson feeder in December of 2016.

It was the furthest east the bird had ever been found in North America, and only the fifth time it had been documented in Ontario.

The first-ever Christmas Bird Count was held on Christmas Day in 1900 in New York City.

Every year about 60,000 people participate annually in over 2,000 Christmas Bird Counts held throughout North and South America.

An initiative of American ornithologist Frank Chapman, he introduced the count as an alternative to "side hunt," a competition in which hunters would shoot as many birds as they could find on Christmas Day.

The data is used to analyze trends such as the disappearance of the Peregrine falcon in the mid 1960’s.

“It was a wake-up call learning that we were killing them with pesticides,” Skevington said.

HRivers@postmedia.com