Christmas Bird Count 2018

By Chris Cash, CBC Chair

Though the overall count of birds was down, the 2018 CBC was very successful in other ways.

We had good weather for Monday, December 17th - no rain, sleet or snow.

We had a great group of people to help with the count. Forty-five people volunteered to bird in the field, and 23 volunteered to be feeder counters.

We counted a total of 81 species and 3369 birds.

This was a decrease of roughly 500 birds from last year. For all of you who had been birding in the fall and early winter of 2018, this was not a surprise. It's just not been "birdy."

We did not have any unusual or rare species sighted.In the field, the East team had the highest number of birds while the Village team had the highest number of species. Our intrepid feeder counters, however, had the highest number of birds counted of any group. If you feed them, they will come - and be counted...

The top five species were as follows:

American Goldfinch - 244
Juncos - 229
American Crow - 211
Turkey Vulture - 190
Cardinal - 165

As usual, we had a fun and delicious evening on Tuesday, December 18th, for the CBC Dinner. The DeSoto Club did an excellent job, and a good time was had by all.