The spotting of a red-shouldered hawk was one highlight of this year's Christmas Bird Count.
More than 5,700 birds were recorded during the annual count Dec. 17.
"It was slightly different because of the snow," said count coordinator Jim Coffman. "But we found a fair number of birds.
"The one bird that we got that we don't normally get is the red-shouldered hawk," he said. "It was south of town toward Melmore."
Another bit of a surprise were purple finches.
"And Tom (Bartlett) found a snow bunting," Coffman said. "Normally, we would see them after a lot of snow. But we've been without that this year."
Coffman said robins are usually found in groups at this time of year, but most were found singly.
"We found six species of the woodpecker types," he said. "We only needed to get a yellow-bellied sapsucker and that would have rounded them out."
There were more blue herons than usual.
"We had a total of seven great blue herons," he said. "That's probably due to the wet weather and not freezing over like it normally does."
Eight bald eagle were seen.
"The eagle count was pretty good," he said. "We had four adults and four young that were spotted. More and more the eagles are either being forced or just getting used to living around people."
Found in lesser numbers this year were wild turkeys. The only two seen were by a woman at her bird feeders.
"The kestrels population is down a little bit," Coffman said.
He said there could be several factors causing the decrease, such as greater aggression by Cooper's hawks as predators or an increase in the use of agricultural chemicals.
"It could be prey-based," he said. "If numbers go down in moles, voles and field mice, the population of those things that prey on them go down, too.
"Redtails (hawks) seem to do fine," he said. "We have a pretty good population of them. But kestrels are more susceptible to herbicides and insecticides because they feed more on insects."
Coffman said there was a non-bird-related note to this year's count.
"This year, it was interesting that driving slow looking for birds was called in to the sheriff a couple times," he said. "We've been doing this to some extent since 1954 and I've been stopped by police officers or game protectors, but mostly out of curiosity."
This year, one person counting in Tiffin was confronted by another person wanting to know what he was doing.
"We're witnessing a little bit more of that, of people being suspicious," he said. "It's just interesting."
Coffman said 19 people from Tiffin and the surrounding area participated, including a few from Oak Harbor and Lindsey. Combined distances covered were 473 miles by car and 20 miles on foot.
