Sparrows were our birds of interest during this year's count; we had white-throated sparrow, American tree sparrows and song sparrows, and several of them! I never know if that is truly unusual for our feeders, or if I just missed them in the past - there is a tendency to look out and assume the flock of birds munching out on the seed under the bush is just the usual juncos...
Last year we had almost nothing on the day of the CBC (Christmast Bird Count), not even a blue jay or chickadee, but this year's feeder count was the morning of the 8-9 inch snow, so there were lots of hungry birds. We had:
9 mourning dove
1 male red-bellied woodpecker
2 male, 1 female downy woodpecker
2 male, 1 female hairy woodpecker
1 bluejay
1 crow
2 black-capped chickadee
3 tufted tit-mouse
2 white-breasted nuthatch
1 Carolina wren
1 American tree sparrow
1 song sparrow
4 white-throated sparrow
7 male, 3 female dark-eyed junco
1 male, 1 female northern cardinal
10 goldfinch
Haven't seen any purple or house finch yet this year (they are regulars in the winter), nor a pine siskin, brown creeper or golden crowned kinglet, which we often see, but not always.
The hawks didn't show up the day of the CBC, or they were sitting above the house when all the other birds went quiet! We have a coopers, who frequents our feeder, and we have large red-tail (see the picture on the November 20 entry)
Do you know the history of the Christmas Bird Count? It used to be that people would go out on Christmas day and see how many birds (and animals) they could shoot and bring home. In 1900, ornithologist Frank Chapman of the Audubon Society suggested a Christmas Bird census where people would count rather than kill the birds. For more information, go to http://birds.audubon.org/history-christmas-bird-count
Happy New Year, all!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please leave a comment about things you have seen and noticed.