LEWIS COUNTY CHRISTMAS BIRD COUNT
By Allison Anholt
This year we had 30 people who participated in the December 20th Lewis County Christmas Bird Count. Considering we had to move the date and were cursed with terrible weather, I am pleased with our efforts. One of our counters, Isabel Vander Stoep, is a local Chronicle reporter and wrote this piece on our CBC.
We saw a total of 101 species on the day of the count. This is lower than 2021 and 2020 but higher than 2017-2019. We saw one additional species during count week (3 days before and 3 days after the count) – an Iceland Gull. We added three new birds to the count that have never been recorded on the Lewis County CBC: Great Egret, American Bittern, and Greater Scaup.
Our total number of individual birds of all species was low this year – 15,587. That’s still a ton of birds! However, it is far fewer than the previous 3 years (last year, for example, we had over 30,000 individual birds). There are a few of reasons for this. The first is that we had fewer observers – last year had 9 more people counting birds. The second is access. This year, we were unable to access both the Centralia mine property in the NW part of the circle and the marsh trail in the Chehalis part of the circle which is closed for overpass construction. Looking at the 2018 and 2019 data which didn’t include access to the mine property, our individual bird count is comparable.
The last reason for a lower number of individual birds was the weather; small birds and raptors are harder to find in heavy rain because they stay deep in vegetation to stay dry. Consequently, their numbers were much lower this year compared to waterbirds which are less affected by the weather. Most of our waterbird numbers were fairly consistent with prior years with the exception of super low numbers of Canada and Cackling Geese and Killdeer, and record high numbers of Eurasian Wigeon, Snow Geese, Green-winged Teal, and Herring Gull.
Finches and their allies were also exceptionally low this year; this is the first time the count has not recorded Pine Siskin or Purple Finch. We had no Red Crossbills or Evening Grosbeaks and only 3 American Goldfinch! Since finches as a group are irruptive (some winters are better than others for recording these birds), it will be interesting to see how many of these species are recorded by other CBCs.
Some of the missed species that we saw on at least 2 prior counts include: Ruffed Grouse, Dunlin, Western Gull, Rough-legged Hawk, Lesser Goldfinch, Swamp Sparrow, and Yellow-rumped Warbler.
Thanks to all who participated and braved the weather. Hope to see you next year!
Photo credit: A very damp Brewer’s Blackbird in Chehalis on the Lewis County Christmas Bird Count, by Rachel Hudson.
