Christmas Bird Count is about to begin

You can be part of the largest census of bird populations on the planet starting on Saturday. The Christmas Bird Count is fun but it's also a crucial element in scientific research and conservation programs.

You can volunteer to tally all birds seen or heard on a specific day—not just the species but also the number of birds per species. To participate, you must sign up by calling the organizer of your particular area.

The Lehigh Valley Audubon Society is conducting  three separate counts:

Allentown. Saturday, December 17. The organizer is Rett Oren. Call 484-985-5685 to participate.

Wild Creek/Little Gap. Sunday, December 18. Organizer: Corey Music. Call 570-269-7509 to participate.

Bethlehem/Easton/Hellertown. Saturday, December 31. Organizers: Don and Elaine Mease. Call 610-346-7754 to participate.

The Christmas Bird Count is organized by the National Audubon Society. Last year more than 76,000 volunteers counted 58.8 million birds, representing 2,607 different species, in 2,505 counts worldwide.

One disturbing finding from last year was the continued decline of the Northern Bobwhite, the only native quail in the eastern United States. Record low numbers of these birds were observed.

Christmas Bird Count volunteers also will be on the lookout for sightings of the Eurasian Collared-Dove, an Old World species that was introduced in the Bahamas in the 1970s and has since spread in great numbers from North Carolina to the Great Lakes.

There is a specific methodology for the Christmas Bird Count. Each count takes place in an established circle that is 15 miles in diameter. Volunteers follow specified routes.

If your home happens to be within one of those 15-mile-wide circles, you can do your counting at home by observing birds that visit your backyard bird feeder or bird bath. To do so, however, you must make arrangements beforehand with the organizer of the count. One other requirement: The count must be made on the date specified. Any sightings reported before or after that date will not be included in the census.

Last year 55 participants in the Allentown count reported 81 different species. Eleven people took part in the Wild Creek/Little Gap count. Even though fewer people were searching, a total of 77 species were seen. The 44 volunteers in the Bethlehem-Easton-Hellertown count recorded 83 species.

Data collected from the Christmas Bird Count, as well as the Breeding Bird Survey in the late spring, has been used to assess the extent and effects of global climate change. For instance, the National Audubon Society forecast that 314 species of North American birds will lose half or more of their current range by 2080. Federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the Fish and Wildlife Service, have used data from the Christmas Bird Count to evaluate the health of bird populations.

Populations of backyard birds

What does the Christmas Bird Count tell us about some of our favorite backyard birds?

You probably make a mental count of the kinds of birds that come to your backyard feeders or bird baths at this time of year. But did you ever wonder which of these species are most numerous in different parts of the country during this season?

Last year's Christmas Bird Count showed that the community with the greatest number of Northern Cardinals was Ragersville, Ohio, a small town southwest of Canton. That town counted 1,772 cardinals within a 15-mile-wide circle.

Concord, Massachusetts, found 3,118 Black-capped Chickadees within the town's 15-mile circle. Concord also had 751 Downy Woodpeckers, 1,108 White-breasted Nuthatches, 1,965 Tufted Titmice, 2,958 Dark-eyed Juncos and 1,692 American Goldfinches—the most numerous of any of these species reported in the United States. What a busy place Concord must be!

The highest number of backyard species were recorded in these locales:

• Mourning Dove, 8,966 in Phoenix, Arizona
• Ruby-throated Hummingbird, 84 in Kendall, Florida
• American Crow, 74,000 in Illinois' Middle Fork River Valley
• Red-breasted Nuthatch, 395 in Anchorage, Alaska
• Eastern Bluebird, 727 in the northern Shenandoah Valley of Virginia
• American Robin, 46,801 in Mizpah, New Jersey, which is located between Vineland and Mays Landing
• Gray Catbird, 1,100 on Long Pine Key, Florida
• Northern Mockingbird, 575 in Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in Texas (northeast of Corpus Christi)
• House Wren, 243 in Matagorda County, Texas (midway between Corpus Christi and Houston)
• Chipping Sparrow, 3,169 in Atascosa Highlands in Arizona
• White-throated Sparrow, 4,281 in Fort Belvoir, Virginia
• White-crowned Sparrow, 5,066 in Stockton, California
• Song Sparrow, 1,630 in Sequim-Dungeness in northwest Washington
• Baltimore Oriole, 60 in Gainesville, Florida
• House Finch, 3,636 in Tucson Valley, Arizona
• Purple Finch, 945 in in Petersburg, New Hampshire
• Pine Siskin, 2,304 in Saranac Lake, New York
• House Sparrow, 4,270 in Davenport, Iowa

If you are one of the many backyard birders who dislike European Starlings, thank your lucky stars that you aren't living in Rio Cosumnes, a small town south of Sacramento, California. Volunteers there found 393,630 starlings in the single day of the Christmas Bird Count!

Closer to home, western Chester County in Pennsylvania reported 638,731 Common Grackles.

Brown-headed Cowbirds must have made Pine Prairie, Louisiana, their winter vacation home. Last year, the town's Christmas Bird Count estimated a population of more than 1 million of these birds (so many cowbirds that hand-counting proved impossible).

One note of local significance: Upper Bucks County reported 136 Eastern Screech-Owls.

The Christmas Bird Count is a lot of fun. You'll never know what you might see on that day!

Join the Christmas Bird Count

You can be part of the largest, longest-running bird census on the planet. The Christmas Bird Count takes place in later this month, and the Lehigh Valley and vicinity will play an important role.

The Christmas Bird Count is fun but it’s also a crucial element in scientific studies and conservation efforts. For instance, data derived from Christmas Bird Counts helped document the decline of the Bald Eagle in North America and lay the groundwork for the species’ recovery.

Locally, counts will take place in three areas:

Allentown area. Scheduled for all-day Saturday, December 20. Contact your group leader from last year or call Stephen Kloiber at 610-863-3889 to link up.

Wild Creek/Lehigh Gap. Scheduled for all-day Sunday, December 21. Contact your group leader from last year or call Josh Nemeth at 610-573-8577 to link up or e-mail him at allroy1313@rcn.com.

Bethlehem-Easton-Hellertown. Scheduled for all-day Saturday, December 27. Contact your group leader from last year or call Don and Elaine Mease at 610-346-7754 to link up.

The Christmas Bird Count is a major citizen science program. The Christmas count, along with the Breeding Bird Survey, is an essential component of conservation policy in the United States, says David Yarnold, president and CEO of the National Audubon Society.

“Fights over conservation dollars in Congress and statehouses, land management decisions and wildlife policy are all influenced by information collected through the CBC and other citizen science projects,” Yarnold says.

Several improvements are coming to this year’s Christmas Bird Count. The long-standing $5 fee for participation has been eliminated, making the count more inclusive than ever. The National Audubon Society will publish information about the count in Spanish for the first time ever, making the program more accessible to Spanish speakers in the United States and throughout the hemisphere.

Snowy Owl

In southeastern Pennsylvania, another change is the creation of a new category for chickadees. No longer will attempts be made to distinguish Black-capped Chickadees from Carolina Chickadees. These species have overlapped and hybridized, making it difficult to identify one bird from the other.

Locally, last year’s Christmas Bird Count was marked by unusual weather fluctuations, including heavy snowfall, and an amazing influx of Snowy Owls at numerous locations. The birds were rarely seen before in the Lehigh Valley.

Bethlehem’s group led statewide tallies for Greater White-fronted Geese, Ross’s Geese and Cackling Geese. The Lehigh Valley also reported the only Great Egret in Pennsylvania. Bethlehem’s two Iceland Gulls contributed to a statewide record of 28 individuals.

Statewide counts resulted in several noteworthy developments.

The Ruffed Grouse decreased to just 51 individuals, the smallest number statewide since the 1960s when there were fewer counts and fewer observers. This decline doesn’t bode well for the state's official bird, which is considered among the most vulnerable species in Pennsylvania because of dwindling range and climate change.

On the other hand, the Wild Turkey rebounded from the previous decade, with a jump of almost 4,000 birds reported statewide.

The tally of Red-breasted Nuthatches fell 90 percent from the 1992 count. No one knows why.

Carolina Wrens set a near-record count of 5,671 birds. The figure could be a fluke because of the weather or it could be a harbinger of a change in the species' range.

Bald Eagles set a record of 464 individuals, with southern Lancaster County’s 53 birds the most reported in any area of the state. The volunteer efforts in previous Christmas Bird Counts demonstrated how Bald Eagles had become an endangered species. Congress passed strong legislation to save the national symbol from extinction, and today the population of Bald Eagles is on the rise in locations where it had disappeared just a few decades ago.

This year’s Christmas Bird Count could highlight changes in other species and help provide the documentation needed to enact conservation and land management efforts to keep species from extinction.


Guess which 10 backyard birds were seen most often last year!

A.  American Crow
B.  American Goldfinch
C.  American Robin
D.  Black-capped Chickadee
E.  Blue Jay
F.  Carolina Wren
G.  Cedar Waxwing
H.  Common Grackle
I.  Dark-eyed Junco
J.  Downy Woodpecker
K.  Eastern Bluebird
L.  European Starling
M.  House Finch
N.  House Sparrow
O.  Mourning Dove
P.  Northern Cardinal
Q.  Purple Finch
R.  Red-bellied Woodpecker
S.  Red-breasted Nuthatch
T.  Rock Pigeon
U.  Song Sparrow
V.  Tufted Titmouse
W.  White-breasted Nuthatch
X.  White-crowned Sparrow
Y.  White-throated Sparrow
Z.  Winter Wren

ANSWERS
(in order of frequency of sighting)

L, I, Y, A, O, P, U, N, E, M

Christmas bird count begins this weekend

The 114th Annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count takes place this weekend at locations throughout the Lehigh Valley. The longest running citizen-science survey in the world, the Christmas bird count provides critical data on population trends. 

Last year 71,000 volunteers took part in the annual event--the greatest number ever. The counts range in location from above the Arctic Circle to Brooklyn and Los Angeles to Tierra del Fuego on the southern tip of South America. The Lehigh Valley count is part of that vast volunteer network.

Deborah Phillips, courtesy of the National Audubon Society

"The Audubon Christmas Bird Count harnesses volunteer power to gather knowledge that shapes conservation policy at enormous scales in this country," said David Yarnold, the Audubon Society's president and CEO.

The data collected "is at the heart of hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific studies and inform decisions by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Department of the Interior  and the EPA," said Gary Langham, Audubon's chief scientist. "Because birds are early indicators of environmental threats to habitats we share, this is a vital survey of North American and, increasingly, the Western Hemisphere."

The accumulation of counts over the years have produced these important findings:

• Northeastern states, including Pennsylvania, are experiencing a marked increase in Hooded Mergansers during the winter.
• The Ruby-crowned Kinglet and the Hermit Thrush are increasing in Northeastern forests of birch, poplar and evergreens. On the other hand, populations of Northern Shrike are declining.
• Do you know of someone who denies the existence of climate change? Birds are not climate skeptics, having spoken with their wings. Record movements of Razorbills (a relative of the Puffin) are moving to southern waters, including Florida, possibly because their normal feeding resources in the Canadian maritime are declining.
• The Bald Eagle is back. The Endangered Species Act works. Also, peregrine falcons are no longer in trouble.

The Lehigh Valley Audubon Society's Christmas Bird Count will take place between December 14 and December 28. Here is how you can participate:

Allentown
Saturday, December 14
Contact your group leader from last year, or call Stephen Kloiber at 610-863-3889.

Wild Creek/Little Gap
Sunday, December 15
Contact your group leader from last year, or call Josh Nemeth at 610-573-8577.

Bethlehem-Easton-Hellertown
Saturday, December 28
Contact your group leader from last year, or call Elaine Mease at 610-346-7754.

There is a specific methodology to the Christmas Bird Count, so be sure to contact your group leader or phone an individual mentioned above for details. If you are a beginning birder, you will be able to join a group that includes at least one experienced bird watcher. If your home is within the boundaries of a Bird Count circle, then you can stay at home and report the birds that visit your feeder on count day as long as you make prior arrangements with the count compiler.

Visit the National Audubon Society for further details on the Christmas Bird Count.