Hi Everyone, December 1st will be the first day of winter listing for the season, running until February 28th. There have been about 357 species of birds recorded in Ontario during the winter period. Last winter 230 species were recorded which is well above average. The average is 207 species looking at data for the last 15 years. Some of the highlights from last year included Arctic Loon, Burrowing Owl, Prairie Falcon, and Black-bellied Whistling-Duck. For more information on the Ontario Winter List there is an article on it 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 in 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 channel for all birds rare to Ontario and the Winter-listers group for birds that are common to Ontario but rare in the winter. There is a winter list channel in the OFO Discord group which can be found here: https://discord.gg/npbCzXVhZ2. The OFO Discord group is new and has less activity than the Ontario Bird Alert Discord Group. Once the winter season begins, you can check the list and inform me of any species that have been seen but are not present on the list. The list can be viewed at http://tinyurl.com/myyulvs. I will try to update the spreadsheet every couple of days or whenever I hear of a new addition. Please let me know if you hear of any additions or have any other corrections to the spreadsheet. Thank you to Barb Charlton for helping with the list promotion. Todd