History and Purpose. The Bird List for the Nanoose Area, begun in August 2005, is a work in progress. It is intended to show the abundances of bird species seen in the Nanoose area, starting with the X-mas 2004 bird count, and to give information about the different species. The list is based on a record of observations which provides examples of where a particular species has been observed in a given month. This record is still sketchy at best. Adding to it is an ongoing process, and members of the Nanoose Naturalists and other interested individuals are invited to contribute observations and see them reflected in the Bird List.
Only a few months after the project was begun, two other bird lists were published covering somewhat wider areas and both including the Nanoose area: Checklist of Birds of Greater Nanaimo, 2005 edition, prepared by Steve Baillie and Guy Monty, and Seasonal Bird Checklist for the Parksville - Qualicum Beach area, November 2005 edition, compiled by Guy Monty. Both of these other checklists are based on extensive data collected over a number of years.
Given these two excellent checklists covering the Nanoose area, why attempt to prepare a new bird list restricted to just the Nanoose area? The Bird List for the Nanoose Area is distinguished from the other two in several ways. Most notably, it is web-based, which makes it easily and widely accessible. This also makes it possible to include links to both photographs and audio tracks of many of the species in the list and to give access to the underlying data. The data can show where and when a species has been observed in the past and may include observations of bird behavior. These features make the Bird List for the Nanoose Area more versatile and allow applications as an educational tool.
Finally, the area covered by the Bird List for the Nanoose Area, being contained within the areas covered by the other two checklists, will have fewer species present. It is interesting to record this difference and to perhaps observe changes over the years.
Area covered. The Bird List for the Nanoose Area is intended to list all bird species observed in an area roughly defined by a 12-km radius circle that has its center at Red Gap in Nanoose Bay. The area extends from the east side of the Englishman River between the Englishman River Estuary and Top Bridge (including everything that can be seen from the east side of the river) to the far end of Lantzville adjoining Nanaimo. This area contains a diversity of habitats, ocean shore and open ocean, tidal flats, wetlands, sweet-water lakes, forests, meadows, and populated areas with different population densities.
Note that, as far as the more easily observed species are concerned, the Bird List applies also to the wider Oceanside area including Parksville and Qualicum Beach. There are some rare birds that have been observed only in the Parksville and Qualicum Beach areas, but not in the Nanoose area.
Organization. The Bird List for the Nanoose Area begins with a listing of bird families, followed by a listing of species within families. Clicking on the name of a family will take you to the species listing for that family. The order in which the families and species are listed is that used in the AOU Checklist of North-American Birds. Note that the AOU has recently changed the ordering of families and that the new ordering is not reflected in field guides that are a few years old.
Features of the species list.
The camera icon next to a species name indicates that an image is available for a bird species. To see the image, click on the icon. Use the browser's Back button to return to the Bird List.
The bird icon next to a species name links to the page for that species from the All About Birds site of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. The Sound tab on this page gives access to a sound recording for the species. Further information, e.g., photo, description of the bird, and range map, is available under the Identification tab. Altogether, the bird icon gives you the kind of information that a field guide would provide and more. Use the browser's Back button to return to the Bird List.
| regular or frequent in its habitat | |
| occasional (observed every year, but only a few individuals) | |
| rare or accidental (not observed every year) | |
| no observations available |
Note. Make your browser window wide enough so that all columns in the Bird List can be seen in the window. You may have to change your monitor's resolution to at least 1024x768 to display the entire width of the Bird List on the screen.
Versions for printing. Several abbreviated versions of the Bird List for the Nanoose Area that can be printed, without links to images, vocalizations, and without records of observations, are available via the links below. You may want to use one of these versions for recording your observations "in the field" or for keeping an ongoing tally of your observations.
Contributing observations. For contributing observations to the Bird List for the Nanoose Area, please find details here.
Suggestions. To make suggestions, please send an email to the Administrator of the Bird List, Hans Laue, at hlaue@ucalgary.ca.
Go to the Bird List for the Nanoose Area with images, vocalizations, references, and abundances.