Christmas Bird Count Results—

Delayed Migrations May Reflect

A Milder Winter

By Dottie Evans

Do the catbirds know something that the rest of us only wonder about?

Is our climate changing? Are the winters getting ever-so-slightly warmer?

Western Connecticut Bird Club President Larry Fischer does not presume to comment upon climate change or global warming, since the scientists and politicians are already at loggerheads on the issue. But he has noted an intriguing trend in the latest Christmas Bird Count over data collected in years past.

“It seems like it has been a cold winter to start, but our Christmas count shows how our perception of things can be off. I would say that the high number of catbirds was the highlight and shows just how mild the winter has been.

“We had 44 people participating and we turned up some new highs in several species,” Mr Fischer said recently when asked to recall highlights of the annual Roxbury-Woodbury Christmas Bird Count, held most recently on Saturday, December 17.

A total of 90 species were counted with the nine new highs being mallards (1,130 individual sightings), red-shouldered hawks (11), red-bellied woodpeckers (143), red-breasted nuthatch (22), hermit thrush (71), catbird (38), red-winged blackbird (375), vesper sparrow (3), and Lincoln’s sparrow (2).

Catbirds and redwing blackbirds, which breed in the north, usually migrate south by early fall. Red-bellied woodpeckers, which were once only seen in the Southeast, have extended their breeding range north over the past 100 years.

Anyone wishing to see a complete list of the count data should send email to KLFischer5@aol.com.

 

When Counting Meant Shooting

According to the most recent newsletter put out by Bent of the River Audubon Center in Southbury, the annual Christmas Bird Count has its roots in a 19th Century holiday tradition known as the Christmas “Side Hunt.” Participants would go out in the field with their guns, and whoever brought in the biggest pile of feathered and furred quarry won.

In 1900, concerned about declining bird populations, ornithologist Frank Chapman proposed a new holiday tradition — a Christmas Bird Census — that would count birds rather than shoot them.

Today, some 1,820 separate Christmas Bird Counts take place with more than 52,000 volunteers participating. In western Connecticut, the count usually begins with predawn owling, and participants can spend as much of the day in the field as they want.

Usually it is a long day, but when twilight comes at 4 pm in mid-December, the count is officially concluded and everyone heads for warmth and shelter in a predetermined meeting place. While eating a hot meal, they turn in their numbers, compare notes, and share battle stories.