Christmas Bird Counts

By the time the end of the 19^th century rolled around, a tradition had emerged on Christmas day. Many North Americans participated in what they called "side hunts", in which they competed to see how many birds they could kill, regardless of whether they had any use for the carcasses and of whether the birds were beneficial, beautiful, or rare. In December 1900, the U.S. ornithologist Frank Chapman, founder of Bird-Lore (which became Audubon magazine), proposed counting birds on Christmas instead of killing them.

That year, 27 observers took part in the first count in 25 places in the United States and Canada, 15 of them in the northeastern U.S. from Massachusetts to Philadelphia. Since then the counts have been held every winter, usually with increasing numbers of observers. For instance, the 101st count, in the winter of 2000–2001, involved 52,471 people in 1,823 places in 17 countries (but mostly in the U.S. and Canada). During the 113th count (winter 2012–2013), 71,531 people participated in 2,369 locations. 

 

The counts are set up by local bird clubs and Audubon societies. For three weeks each year (14 December to 5 January) tens of thousands of birders head out to conduct the CBC. These counts are cooperative efforts to get the best count of birds in a single 15-mile diameter circle. The circle is loosely associated with a park, town, or part of a city and the same circle is used each year. Volunteer birders assemble and are divided into teams and are assigned a segment of the count circle to spend as much of the day as it takes to cover that area and count all the birds of each species that they find. The Bend Christmas Count was last Sunday and the Madras Christmas count was yesterday. I usually try to do two or three counts in the local area. Some of the Oregon counts are very remote such as the one held at the Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge in South East Oregon.  This year we are not finding large numbers of birds but species counts remain high.  

Barrow's Goldeneye pair found on the Madras Christmas Bird Count

 

Here is the remaining birds to list for this year before school ends. The list will continue starting in January, and now the challenge is on, as I try to find the less common birds and the specialty birds from the South West. Some of them of course will be common birds for that area but will be new to the list. Have a great Holiday Break and I look forward to continuing Mr Sutherland's Amazing Bird Race in the New Year with lots of cool Birds of the Week.

251 Golden-crowned Sparrow, Pilot Butte, Bend, Oregon

252 Lewis's Woodpecker, Shevlin Park, Bend Oregon, (catchup)

253 Gray-crowned Rosy Finch, Smith Rock State Park, Oregon

254 Chestnut-backed Chickadee, Portland, Oregon

255 Fox Sparrow, Portland, Oregon

256 Pinion Jay, Hatfield Lake, Deschutes County, Oregon

257 Eurasian Wigeon, Basket Slough National Wildlife Refuge, Dallas Oregon

258 Snowy Owl, Dallas, Oregon,

259 Glaucous-winged Gull, Columbia river

260 Bushtit, Tumalo Oregon

261 Western Bluebird, Tumalo, Oregon

262 Northern Shrike, Hatfield Lakes, Bend, Oregon

263 Barrow's Goldeneye, Deschutes River, Warm Springs Indian Reservation, Jefferson County, Oregon

264 Dunlin, Lake Simtustus, Warm Springs Indian Reservation, Jefferson County, Oregon

Bird of the Week, 15

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azGEYpChlVk


So, here we are, the final Bird of the Week in the Great Bird Race for 2014. Next week you will be taking a break and enjoying the company of family and celebrating the birth of our Lord, the creator of all the birds. It is through His love for us that He has given us all the beautiful creatures to enjoy and that is one of the main reasons I like to watch birds because it always reminds me of Him.


The Heron family consist of what we call waders and is actually divided into three subgroups, Herons, Egrets, and Bitterns. I tried to find out what the difference is between Herons and Egrets and no one could actually separate them definitively so it's probably less confusing to just group them like the bird books do in the group of all the waders.


In North America, there are actually seven different Herons or Egrets that can appear in a white phase. Four of them are always white and the other three have a white phase like a previous bird of the week, the Reddish Egret.  (hint) This Bird of the Week has one distinctive feature that does not occur on any of the others.   Separating the Herons and Egrets  involves comparing bill shape and color and leg color, and once you check these features, it is not difficult to determine which of the waders you are looking at.


In this video you will see one of the feeding strategies that the waders use, which is to scurry around and scare up fish so they can see them and hopefully spear one. I was hoping to get a successful hunt on video but that didn't happen while I was filming.  This should not be a difficult ID


This week, we did another bird chase to hopefully find another rare bird for the list. Snowy Owls breed in Northern Canada and Alaska and usually do not come south of the boarder into the lower forty-eight states very often. The boarding states usually get a few birds but when food sources are scarce, the owls will come farther south and some years there is an invasion of sorts where lots of them show up. Last year was the biggest invasion of Snowy Owls on record and this seems to be continuing somewhat, there have already been three separate Owls discovered in Oregon this winter. One showed up in Dallas, Oregon week ago Saturday so Monday the 8th, we went over and were lucky enough to find it. This might be the only one I will see during the big year.

Snowy Owl in Dallas, Oregon, Dec 8, 2014

With the start of the new year, Mrs Sutherland and I will be hitting the road again. Our plans are to head south to Texas where we are picking up a small camper trailer that we ordered and rather than spend the money to have it delivered we are using the money for a road trip and hope to spend six to eight weeks in mostly warm sunshine in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. These four states have most of the North American bird species so this should go a long way to reaching my goal of finding a minimum of 500 bird species by August 31, 2015. Looking forward to some really cool birds of the week and maybe a surprise foreign bird of the week as well.

Watch for my final post of the year toward the end of this week and I will discuss Christmas Bird Counts and post the latest additions to the list.  


Good Luck, happy New Year and happy birding.

Bird of the Week, 14

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLHXit4az1o

Well here we are, the school year is almost half over and 2014 is rapidly coming to a close.  I hope you have been enjoying this birding adventure half as much as I have.  It has been a pleasure to challenge you with new birds, many of which you may never see, at least without taking a road trip.  I look forward to the new year as the Great Bird Race continues.  If all goes as planned, we will be traveling the Southwest and exploring the many wonderful trails and interesting places along the way.  And of course great birds.

This weeks bird was found at Mingo National Wildlife Refuge in Missouri and it is challenging because it has a very close cousin that is found in Deschutes County.  This is an example of using range maps to differentiate which one it could be, but it pays to really look close for the subtle differences because this bird is found occasionally in Oregon and it does sometimes interbreed with its cousin so the offspring present a real challenge. So, range maps are a guide but where the ranges overlap, they are not a good tool.  In this case, since the bird was found far from where it overlaps with its cousin, the range map does become useful. 

 Look closely at all the holes in this tree, this guy has been spending a lot of time and the holes are a sign of the special way they feed which is reflected in its name.  I will point out that this is an adult male.  Oh, and the other part of its name is completely lacking on this bird and can be very subtle on many of this species. 

Extra points if you can tell what bird is calling loudly in the background :=)

Have a great week and Happy birding.