fri, 29-dec-2023, 13:18
Ruffed Grouse, April 2023
We’ve been keeping a yard list of all the animals we see since we moved to the Goldstream Valley in 2008. At the end of the year it’s fun to look at the data and compare this year against previous years.
We saw 39 different species of bird, 8 mammal species, and one amphibian (the full list). In an average year we see 36 bird species, 7 mammals, and the one amphibian we have in the Interior, so we saw a few more than usual in 2023.
Here’s a list of species we either saw for the first time this year, or are uncommonly seen on our property:
| Common Name | Years seen (including 2023) |
|---|---|
| Coyote | 1 |
| Northern Waterthrush | 1 |
| Townsend’s Solitaire | 1 |
| Ruffed Grouse | 2 |
| Black-billed Magpie | 3 |
| Alder Flycatcher | 4 |
| Lynx | 4 |
And we only missed one species we commonly see, Northern Shrike, which we’ve seen in 11 out of 16 years.