Our Wild River Audubon Chapter had 33 people involved with counting birds in our area on December17th during our 47th annual Christmas Bird Count, CBC. Sixteen people counted birds coming to their feeders, while the others travelled within the 15-mile diameter circle that included most of the Chisago Lakes area. The 44 species counted this year beat the yearly average of 36. The total birds counted was 3,125 which was below average.
Even though the snowy and overcast weather was the not the best for sighting distant birds, new record high counts for Red-breasted Nuthatch (24), and a whopping 163 Cardinals were noteworthy! Our average count for the Red-breasted Nuthatch over 47 years is only 5 and 50 for Cardinals. It will be interesting to see how the other CBCs in our area compare with new population data for these two species.
Our count data is entered into an international data base that records CBC information gathered across North and Central America. The first CBCs were held in 1900, and have continued every year since.
Our data begins with the 1976 CBC. We have tallied a combined total of a little more than 175,000 birds during those counts, or about 4,000 each year! We’ve counted 13 species of birds every year: pheasant, pigeon, downy woodpecker, hairy woodpecker, pileated woodpecker, blue jay, crow, chickadee, white-breasted nuthatch, tree sparrow, goldfinch, and house sparrow.
Our Wild River Christmas Bird Count was just one of the 2,646 that were held in 2020 when the data were finalized. The data are collected by volunteers and are shared world-wide at no charge. We appreciate all of the people that enjoy feeding birds, simply helping preserve a part of our local habitat, or welcoming us to count the birds at their feeders.
Thank You! Happy 2023.
Following are photos from the CBC event:
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