Hi Everyone, December 1st will be the first day of winter listing for the season, running until February 29th. There have been about 356 species of birds recorded in Ontario during the winter period. Last winter 218 species were recorded which is above average. The average is 207 species looking at data for the last 16 years. Some of the highlights from last year included White-rumped Sandpiper, Pectoral Sandpiper, Western Sandpiper, Dovekie, Razorbill, LeConte's Sparrow, and Yellow-breasted Chat. 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. Just 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 center ( 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. The first being the Niagara River Gull watch. I am hoping some rare gulls are found with so many birders in the area at the start of winter (Dec 2-3 2023). Other OFO events include: - Making Audio Recordings of Birds (online)- Dec. 6 2023 - Toronto Lakeshore (field) - Dec. 10 and another on Dec. 16 2023 - Understanding the Language of the Forest (online) - Jan. 3 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 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