By Dalton Spencer
I want to thank everyone who participated this year so much for helping out! I would be absolutely worthless without all of the kindness and commitment of others that contribute to this effort. Your skills and dedication have directly related to the great numbers of this count. Once again, thank you all so much!
The unspoken spoken goal of the Lewis County CBC has been 100 species and on December 18th, 2020 we recorded 104 species, breaking the previous record by 6 species! To accompany those 104 species, we also had 3 more birds recorded during the count week – Iceland “Thayer’s” Gull, Barred Owl, and Western Bluebird.
Due to COVID-19, we had to conduct the count differently than in a normal year. This allowed us to have greater coverage of the circle because groups were not allowed. Instead, singles or pairs covered smaller areas. This allowed birders to cover the areas more thoroughly and miss fewer birds. The weather on the day of the count was also significantly better than in 2019. It was a fairly warm day with high cloud cover and wind mainly in the late afternoon. The conditions could not have been better for a December day of birding in southwest Washington.
2020 gave us two new birds for the count: White-breasted Nuthatch and Ring-necked Pheasant (previously only seen on count week). From what I can see, this is the first time in at least 5 years that a White-breasted Nuthatch has been seen on a CBC north of Cowlitz County. The single bird was seen by Rachel Hudson just a few blocks away from downtown Chehalis in a residential neighborhood. There are many oak trees remaining in the area and it has long been wondered if the species once occurred here and if it would ever occur again. This year we found out that it could happen. Truly an amazing bird and an amazing find for the count.
Not only was 2020 an amazing species year but we also recorded 26,289 individuals, besting the previous record by 6,202!
Due to this being a new count, I know some of the following numbers may be slightly exaggerated. To help keep these numbers as normalized as possible, this summary only includes the species that had been seen on at least 3 of the 4 counts thus far. We had 59 species record a high count, 3 species record a low count, 6 tied their previous high count, and 2 tied their previous low counts. This means that only 33 species were within the normal range of values or recorded less than 3 times thus far on the count.
The three low counts were Wood Duck (2), Double-crested Cormorant (35), and American Pipit (2).
The five most common species on the count this year were: Pine Siskin (3087), European Starling (2587), Cackling Goose (1653), Northern Pintail (1522), Green-winged Teal (1316).
We had 15 species recorded in all 9 sections which goes to show how varied the habitats across the circle are. Some groups spent their days in mainly agricultural lands while others were mainly in heavily forested areas. The Lewis County CBC circle has an immense amount of variety of habitats.
Of species that have occurred in 3 or more counts, Pine Siskin had the greatest increase over its original high count with an increase of 759.89%. The previous high count for the species was 359 individuals in 2019 and this year we had a whopping 3087! This was on par for most of the CBCs in western Washington – most having seen a massive influx of Pine Siskins. Coming in second was Lesser Scaup with an increase of 550% over its previous high count. This was an increase from 12 to 78 individuals.
These numbers were gathered by 26 field participants and 10 feeder watchers. I am so glad that this CBC, with your help, was not another causality of 2020.
Click here to see the full results of the 2020 Lewis County Christmas Bird Count
