10th Rock Cut CBC, Count 119, 12/26/18

Compiler: Joel Neylon
Year: 118, 12/26/18
Weather: Low 21.0 f High 45.0 f. Clouds: Clear. Rain: none. Snow: none.
Effort: Participants: 15. Hours: 56.25 Species: 65. Total individuals: 11,968.

Hello everyone,

I am very excited to report that we set several records this year, starting with breaking last year's record of 57 with an impressive 65! We also roped in 11,968 individual birds, and while that is not a record, it is an excellent number for this count.

On one hand this is surprising, as most of us were having some difficulty finding birds do to the warm weather, but we had better coverage this year than we have had in previous years. One spot that I tried this year was biking down the 15 miles of bike trail on the Long Prairie & Stone Bridge Trail in the northern part of the circle. I definitely intend to make this a regular count area for the circle, please let me know if you or anyone you know would be interested in a biking area for the Christmas Bird Count.

To go over some highlights: We did very well in owls this year with 16 owls in 4 different species. The 204 Common Mergansers beat the previous high of 45. Red-breasted Nuthatches came in with an astounding 62, with the previous high being 9. There also Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Carolina Wren, and a count week Northern Shrike.

One that came up short was sparrows, American Tree, Song, Swamp, Dark-eyed Junco, and House Sparrow were all low, and regrettably nobody found Fox Sparrow. The exception here is White-throated Sparrow which came in at 36 beating last years 23. And not surprisingly with the lack of snow cover, we didn't find any Longspurs or Snow Buntings.

The best of the count this year was the Townsend's Solitaire that Gary Jahnke found. While this is not the first time that a Townsend's Solitaire has turned up in the count circle, we had one in Rock Cut State Park 2 years ago, it is the first record that I am aware of for one in Boone Cty.

On the count list anything marked with an * is a new high count, anything labeled with ** is a new bird for the count, cw is count week.

Joel

Snow Goose: 5**
Cackling Goose: 25
Canada Goose: 5812
Gadwall: 3
American Black Duck: 4
Mallard: 447
Common Goldeneye: 12
Common Merganser: 204
Wild Turkey: 19
Great Blue Heron: 1
Northern Harrier: 1
Cooper's Hawk: 3
Bald Eagle: 5
Red-tailed Hawk: 42
Rough-legged Hawk: 1
Killdeer: 2**
Wilson's Snipe: 1
Ring-billed Gull: 13
Herring Gull: 116
Rock Pigeon: 228
Eurasian Collared-Dove: cw
Mourning Dove: 162
Eastern Screech Owl: 4*
Great Horned Owl: 6*
Barred Owl: 5*
Northern Saw-Whet Owl: 1
Belted Kingfisher: 3
Red-headed Woodpecker: 2
Red-bellied Woodpecker: 74
Downy Woodpecker: 106
Hairy Woodpecker: 25
Northern Flicker: 18
Pileated Woodpecker: 3
American Kestrel: 3
Merlin: 1
Peregrine Falcon: 1**
Northern Shrike: cw
Blue Jay: 117
American Crow: 181
Horned Lark: 31
Black-capped Chickadee: 283
Tufted Titmouse: 4
Red-breasted Nuthatch: 62*
White-breasted Nuthatch: 98
Brown Creeper: 7
Golden-crowned Kinglet: 1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet: 2
Eastern Bluebird: 29
Townsend's Solitaire: 1
Hermit Thrush: 4
American Robin: 82
European Starling: 2440
Cedar Waxwing: 143
American Tree Sparrow: 115
Dark-eyed Junco: 252
White-crowned Sparrow: 2
White-throated Sparrow: 36
Song Sparrow: 1
Northern Cardinal: 153
House Finch: 115
Purple: 2
American Goldfinch: 113
House Sparrow: 353

Posted on September 6, 2021 11:46 AM by neylon