Every first Sunday in November, you will find me in this area counting the birds. This is part of my survey area for the annual Hamilton Fall Bird count, which was renamed this year to the Alan Wormington Fall Bird Count. I hid this cache while surveying the birds along this unopened road allowance. There are many such unopened road allowances in this area, and I usually travel on most of them (by foot) during the suvey.

The cache is a 1L plastic nalgene bottle. It contains the logsheet and a few trade items. There is a logging password recorded on the logsheet, please make note of it when signing the log. Enter the Log Password in CAPITAL LETTERS.

I am not a member of the Hamilton Naturalist Club and this cache is not in any way related to the club or the count.

The cache is placed on public land (an unopened road allowance) and there is no need to tresspass to get to the cache. The forest beyond the road allowace is privately owned (both sides), so please keep to the road allowance. Bring boots - it's almost always muddy. You can park at either end of the road allowance and can walk to the cache. Do not block the road allowance as it is used by ATVs and likely tractors. I recommend parking at the following coordinates: N 43 09.215 W 079 35.715 (Allen Rd north of Mud Street W).

This year was my 5th year covering this area. This year I recorded over 1200 individual birds from 31 different species. I surveys for 8 hours (on foot and by car).

More about the Fall Bird Count, from the Hamilton Naturalists’ Club website:

The Hamilton Naturalists’ Club has two types of bird counts annually, the Fall Bird Count, and the Christmas Bird Counts.

The Fall Bird Count (FBC) is on the first Sunday in November each year, and encompasses the entirety of the Hamilton Study Area (HSA), at 25-mile radius circle from Dundurn Castle.

The Fall Bird Count (FBC) has been an annual Hamilton Naturalists’ Club (HNC) event since 1974 and for many Hamilton area birders it is one of the highlights of the birding year. In 2016 it was named in honour and memory of the count’s founder, Alan Wormington.

The FBC always occurs on the first Sunday in November and thus it can only occur in the one week window from November 1-7. This count was started by club member Alan Wormington to correspond to the Hamilton Spring Bird Count.

Over the 32 years of the FBC there has been an annual average of 128.6 species.

Source: http://hamiltonnature.org/birding/counts/fall-bird-count/

Cache Maintenance record:

2018-11-04 - Cache check. In great shape. Road very muddy!

2022-11-06 - Cache check, all is well. Nice to see a couple names in the logbook. The "trails" this year were very dry and easy to travel. Surprised to learn this road allowance has been turned into a power trail, typical GC about-the-numbers stuff.