On Sunday, December 15 Evergreen Audubon will conduct its 56^th annual Christmas Bird Count (CBC).  This is a day devoted to counting birds in a 15-mile-diameter circle that extends from Robinson Hill Road on the north to just south of the Brook Forest Inn; and from near Echo Lake on the west to the bottom of Kerr Gulch on the east.  It is one of about 2500 Christmas Bird Counts held annually throughout the Western Hemisphere, and one of about fifty such counts held each year here in Colorado.

On our count day we will head out in small groups to find as many species and individual birds as we can within our circle.  Folks of all abilities and ages are encouraged to participate by joining one of our field groups, or by staying home and seeing what shows up at your feeders.  Feeder-counters have made a huge difference in our results in recent years.

After a full day of counting birds, all participants are invited to one of Evergreen Audubon’s premier events of the year – the Tally Rally (Registration will be possible through a separate upcoming Christmas Bird Count post).  The Tally Rally is where we share our findings and adventures of the day while enjoying a traditional chili supper with pot-luck appetizers and fixings. This year’s hosts will be Lisa and David Wald, who once again have generously made their home available for the occasion.

Want to learn more and potentially get involved, join us at the Evergreen Audubon’s Chapter meeting on Tuesday, December 3^rd at the Church of the Transfiguration (27640 CO-74) at 6:00 pm.   Chuck Aid, CBC Coordinator, will give a brief history of the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count, test your knowledge on bird identification and talk about how to participate either in the field with an Area Leader or at home as a Feeder-Counter.

Unable to attend the Chapter meeting, register at the bottom of this page and a CBC Coordinator will be in touch.  If you are an old hand at this, you can just get in touch with whatever area leader you have gone out with previously, or you can wait for an area leader to initiate contact.  Previous feeder-counters will be contacted by a CBC Coordinator to confirm participation.

Each year several interesting stories emerge from our day in the field. In 2014 it snowed all day and drove large numbers of Pine Grosbeaks and Cassin’s Finches down from the higher elevations. In 2015 we had gloriously mild weather allowing us to record almost 2000 more individual birds than the prior year, and to set a new record for our area of 57 species. Then, 2016 was the Year of the Juncos, with 2171 individuals of this one species.  Finally, 2017 was the No Snow Year leading to low counts for the Rosy-Finches.  And then, in 2018 we trumped ourselves again by finding 58 species as we did well with species from both lower and higher elevations.  2019 brought us a pair of Trumpeter Swans; and 2020, the Covid count, was truly incredible with a doubling of our number of feeder-counters to 51, and, subsequently, an all-time high number of birds, 9197, and a remarkable 1101 Pygmy Nuthatches.  Again in 2021 we had great feeder-counter participation, and this helped boost our final count to 6,579 birds, about a thousand more than we get on average.  Then, in 2022 we had a whopping 8,792 birds and picked up a new species not recorded in 53 prior years, a Pacific Wren. Finally, last year we had an all time high of 86 folks in the field and picked up two additional new species for our count – a single Lewis’s Woodpecker and a small flock of Lapland Longspurs.

As usual, this year we will continue to pay special attention to the Mountain Chickadees and Pygmy Nuthatches, looking for high counts in the hope that we can continue to be the world champs for both of these species. We’ve been the Mountain Chickadee world champs for several years in a row now, but the Pygmy Nuthatch competition has been more nip and tuck.

The bottom line – If you want to make sure that you are in the loop, register here, and a CBC Coordinator will be in touch.

Thanks,

Chuck Aid, Holly Marr, and Chris Marr
CBC Coordinators