Hi Everyone, December 1st will be the first day of winter listing for the season, running until February 28th. There have been 359 species of birds recorded in Ontario during the winter period. Last winter 226 species were recorded which is above average. The average is 208 species looking at data for the last 17 years. New birds added to the winter list from last year included Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Limpkin, Ancient Murrelet, Philadelphia Vireo, and Fieldfare. For more information on the Ontario Winter List there is an article in the OFO News found here: http://www.ofo.ca/library/serve/on-39-1/index.html?page=9. If you are looking for a way to spice up your birding hobby this winter consider a winter list. This list could motivate you to get out more in the winter and enjoy nature. Post your sightings to Ontbirds (if sufficiently rare), ebird.org, Ontario Bird Alert Discord group (https://discord.gg/EhvgAc2fwb) or send me an email, and I will update the list accordingly and provide an update to Ontbirds and the discords every couple of weeks. When using the Ontario Bird Alert Discord group, use the Ontario-wide Rare Bird Alert (RBA) channel for all birds rare to Ontario and the Winter-listers RBA for birds that are common to Ontario but rare in the winter. The Ontario Bird Alert Discord group also has a Winter lister chat group for general chats about winter listing not related to a specific bird sighting. The OFO also has a discord chat (https://discord.com/invite/npbCzXVhZ2) to discuss winter birding. The OFO winter listing chat is another great spot to chat about your winter birding adventures and thoughts. The OFO is running several field trips and webinars over the winter months. OFO events include: - Ontario Shorebirds: Zoom meeting (online)- Dec. 4 2024 - Niagara River Gull Watch (field) - Dec. 7-8 2024 - Toronto Lakeshore (field) - the Dec. 15 session is full but there is another session on Dec. 21 2024 Make sure you register and note the dates on your calendars. You can register on the OFO website here: http://www.ofo.ca/site/Tripsupcoming. There are more events in 2025 that I have not listed above. After the first week of December you can check the winter bird list and inform me of any species that have been seen but are not present on the list. This gives me time to start the list. The list can be viewed at http://tinyurl.com/myyulvs. I try to update the spreadsheet every week at the beginning of the season and increase the length between updates as the season progresses as there is less to add. Hopefully we have some late fall rarities stay into December. Todd