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The Christmas Bird Count 2019

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The history of the Annual Christmas Bird Count is interesting for how it was a way to shift from annual contests of how many birds could be killed to how many birds can be counted.  So, for many years now, volunteers have been conducting bird counts in late December.  The count is conducted on the same day across broad parts of the country.  The 1600 acres which make up our community has been in the bird counting area for the last three years.  There is some fluctuations of the numbers of birds as well as the numbers of species.
Below is the summary of the data for the last three years:
                                                              2019       2018     2017
Number of Species                                 41            54        42

Number of Individuals                           350        1869      405


The details of the summarized data can be accessed at this link by right clicking and opening in a new window:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SKu9yobtQVYedCHGozUIGx-D5Wo3JEiq/view?usp=sharing
There are a few discernable differences from year to year.
  •   The high number of individuals in 2018 was due almost entirely to the observation of a flock of robins and cedar waxwings.  When these birds come through on their migrations, they come in large numbers, feeding and moving on.  So, its chance that one might encounter them on the day of the count.
  • 2019 was a dry year so there were fewer water based birds.
  • Because of the dry year of 2019, there were more of the broad family of sparrows.

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