RBG. Hendrie Valley, Burlington ON. September 28th. 2020. I scheduled myself to complete one of our regular transects in the valley this morning. But wait! Before I go any further, it’s perhaps time to expand a little on what I mean by ‘completing one of our transects’.
It’s a longish story, but in brief I am one of a team of capable birders who gather data on bird populations on the natural lands of Canada’s Royal Botanical Gardens, (RBG). Our task, in April, May, September and October, is to walk the length of any of three defined routes recording all birds seen and heard; that’s it, that’s a transect.
Today’s route, Cherry Hill, takes us along trails in a loop through hardwood forest, across a wide river valley, skirts three woodland-enclosed ponds and follows a lightly-treed river bank. It is a very beautiful walk any day of the year and the habitat is so varied that the birding is about as good as it gets in this part of Ontario.
Cherry Hill is one of three defined routes, the others are different but just as interesting in their variety. We count and record all birds seen and heard, then upload a report to a compiler. We are gathering very raw data for the use of RBG with the goal of accumulating many years and decades of such data. The more we gather the greater its value. (We call our project the Longwatch and this website has a lot more background information.)