Bird totals a bit low for annual Christmas Bird count

Snow again, and it’s probably going to do so off and on all day. I am inside, looking out the window as I’m having breakfast, and the birds are outside, having breakfast, too. It snowed most of the night, but I don’t believe we had as much as the weatherman predicted. It is hard to tell because there were still several inches left from the last snow, so we have at least 14 inches on the ground, and in places where it drifts, it is more than 2 feet.
Tomorrow it is supposed to warm up a bit and be sunny. This has been a snowy winter, starting early with one storm following the other and not much of a break in between. This has been a strange storm with snow as fine as sand and high winds creating blizzard conditions when the wind would die down and big soft flakes would fall. It is not really heavy, but there is so much in places, I had to take four shovelfuls to get to the ground. I only did a few feet just to get to the bird feeder.
The chickadees are eating peanuts and sunflower seeds, but I had to get some millet out for the juncos. This snow is too deep for anything to scratch its way down to seeds or grass on the ground.
The 43rd annual Christmas Bird Count was held on Sunday, Dec. 18. I went out with Kathanne Lynch, who was the leader for the Genesee/Cold Springs area. Two other members of our group were Betty Mingus and Harriet Stratton. The count was only four days ago, but it was quite a different day. We were fortunate to have a very mild day for December and not too much snow on the ground.
We were able to cover all of our territory on dry roads, and I was able to attend the tally count supper in the evening with Karel Buckley. Despite the nice weather, the count totals were a bit low in both the number of species and individuals seen. This may have been due to the nice weather for many of the birds were out in the fields, eating native foods, and not at the feeders.
Many of the rare and unusual birds are found by working your territory the week ahead of the count to know where they are and by walking the territory. I fear many of us cannot do the strenuous walking anymore, and some territories are not as thoroughly covered. I admit I can’t and didn’t get out of the car much, but Betty and Harriet walked a good bit of the territory we were in.
Our group saw nothing rare or unusual but had some nice counts. Totals of 252 black-billed magpies and 863 American crows showed that the crows and jays are beginning to recover from the devastation of West Nile fever. Fourteen white-breasted nuthatches and 57 pygmy nuthatches are about what I expected, but may be a bit low. Thirty-seven robins in our territory pleased everyone and the total for the entire county area was 431.
This does not mean spring is coming for these were birds from farther north that are wintering here. This snow will be bad for them, but perhaps they will move still farther south. Fifteen song sparrows will perhaps also move to lower altitudes, but they seem to survive by feeding along the edge of streams like Bear Creek where they can sometimes find open water.
A total of all of the dark-eyed junco morphs seemed a bit low at 266, but they were all scattered out in the fields and may increase when the feeder reports are mailed in. Starlings, house finches and house sparrows were about average.
Red crossbills were low considering how many we had around all fall. They may increase when feeder reports come in. The totals for the entire count area were 48 species and 5,129 individual birds.
Owls were low with only one species seen. That was discovered by JoAnn and Bill Hakos at the end of the day. Bill was driving and JoAnn was looking for birds when they drove under a pine tree. JoAnn said, “That pinecone has a tail.” Bill, well trained as a driving birder, turned around, and there was a tiny pygmy owl perched on the limb, not a pinecone. Good catch, JoAnn and Bill!
The Christmas holidays have been good, and I wish you all a happy and prosperous new year.