The 114th Christmas Bird Count

 December 14, 2013 through January 5, 2014

By Geoffrey S. LeBaron

A storm of epic proportions and uncharacteristic in nature defined the 114^th Christmas Bird Count. This storm didn’t produce much snow—but it did produce an unusually high number of Snowy Owls. The circumstances driving the owl storm began in the high North American arctic in the summer of 2013, continued through late December, winter and into June of 2014. This was not a storm catalyzed by arctic air masses or oceanic currents, but by millions of lemmings—small mammals in the eastern Canadian arctic.

In the summer of 2013 researchers in far northeastern Canada noticed a fascinating phenomenon—rings of dead lemmings and other small mammals around Snowy Owl nests full of eggs and hatchlings. The adult owls were taking advantage of a tremendous population boom of lemmings last summer, and stockpiling prey (perhaps optimistically) around their nests to supply bountiful food for their young. Snowy Owls and other arctic predators are well known for their ability to take advantage of these peaks in mammalian prey base, and each owl pair is likely to raise far more owlets to fledging in summers of such plentiful food. Thus the population of Snowy Owls makes a sudden, and dramatic, increase in seasons such as the summer of 2013. With far more owls in the arctic than usual at the end of the breeding season, the stage was set for the irruption event to follow in the fall and winter.

List serves began reporting Snowy Owls in higher-than-average numbers in the East and around the Great Lakes by early November; before the end of the month birds had been sighted far at sea off the East Coast perched on buoys or coming onto boats, and one reached Bermuda. Even then the numbers were notable, but the big push began in early December. Birders at Cape Race, Newfoundland in one morning found over 200 Snowy Owls visible from the road accessing the point—and numbers began to increase dramatically again around the Great Lakes and in the Atlantic Provinces and Northeastern United States. Birders being birders were of course following this event in great anticipation of encountering record numbers of Snowy Owls on their upcoming Christmas Bird Counts.

Just before the count period began, Mother Nature changed the playing field. A series of major coastal and interior snowstorms set up, hitting many regions in a pattern of repeated storms—mostly falling on the weekends. This pattern continued throughout the 114^th Count period. Many counts were postponed and some cancelled, while many others were conducted under less-than-ideal conditions. One key count had to be cancelled outright for the entire period because the road was impassable with snow—Cape Race, Newfoundland. In circumstances displaying more than a touch of ornithological irony, snow accumulation prevented the hundreds of Snowy Owls known to be present at Cape Race from being counted this season.

So we were well primed for the 114^th Christmas Bird Count, with visions of Snowy Owls dancing in our heads—again! And the results were nothing short of spectacular. Somewhat surprisingly given the meteorological challenges, especially in eastern North America, during the weekends of the count period the 114^th CBC still produced record-breaking levels of participation. For the fifth season in a row there were more counts and more observers included than ever before. In terms of the number of counts included, at 2408 circles completed the 114^th season bested the 113^th by 39, including 1863 in the United States, 438 in Canada, and 107 in the Caribbean, Latin America, and Pacific Islands. This number was bolstered by 56 new counts (20 in Canada, 30 in the United States, and 6 elsewhere), and the list of new circles and locations is shown in Table 1. We welcome El Salvador back to the roster of countries conducting Christmas Bird Counts, and look forward to the continued expansion of the number of circles in Latin America.

Table 1.  New counts in the 114^th (2013-2014) Christmas Bird Count

Count Code              Count Name

CANADA

UNITED STATES

CARIBBEAN, LATIN AMERICA

(56 new counts)

The completion of more counts does not necessarily equate to more observers, especially when inclement weather plays a role in a given count season. But again in the 114^th Count we set a new record level of total number of observers, with 71,659 (60,969 in field plus 10,690 at feeders) just besting last season’s short-standing record. Regional participation sub-totals are as follows: 48,962 in field and 6500 feeder watchers for 55,462 observers in the United States; 9509 afield and 4127 at feeders for a total of 13,636 observers in Canada; and 2498 field observers and 63 feeder watchers in all other countries combined. As always, lots of CBCs with lots of participants can include lofty individual tallies of participation, and Table 2 lists the 82 counts included in the 114^th Christmas Bird Count with 100 or more observers reported.

Table 2.  Counts with 100 or more participants in the 114^th (2013-2014) CBC

Code                Count Name                                                                # Observers  (Field + Feeder)

For the full picture of the 114^th CBC, please don’t forget to have a look at the complete list of all Christmas Bird Counts and their compilers that were included this past season.

All those observers in all those places of course—and as always—are going to turn up a lot of birds, and overall in the 114^th Count 66,243,371 birds were tallied; 62,857,532 in the United States, 3,021,397 in Canada, and 364,442 other all other countries combined. This total is about on par for recent seasons—the “wild card” in any CBC is whether huge numbers of communally roosting species like blackbirds, starlings, robins, or crows are tallied within circles or not. No exceptionally large roosts were present in any circles this past season.

Given the geographic scope of the Christmas Bird Count, it’s no surprise that many, many species are tallied in total. In the 114^th CBC, 2403 species were counted (plus 291 non-specific forms) from counts above the Arctic Circle to the Andes of South America, plus the islands of the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean. This number is slightly up from last season, likely due to the inclusion of those six new counts in Latin America. In the United States, 652 species and 47 infraspecific forms were tallied, including two new for the US, Sinaloa Wren at Appleton-Whittell, Arizona and Red-throated Pipit at San Jacinto Lake, California. Neither of these species are new to the overall CBC database, but it’s the first time either one has been tallied in the United States. In Canada, 291 species were tallied during the 114^th CBC, with three new to Canada included in that total, Black-footed Albatross at Greater Massett, British Columbia, Red-faced Cormorant at Rose Spit, British Columbia, and Black Phoebe at Chilliwack, also in BC.

Several new species are included for the first time in the cumulative CBC database, most from newly-established counts in Latin America or on far-flung oceanic islands. One new species, however, though tallied on the Queens, Long Island, New York count, isn’t officially “count-able”; this Eurasian Linnet was deemed to be an escaped cage bird. Two other species that would have been new to the cumulative database were included only as “count week” birds, and thus not a part of the official tally—Hawaiian Petrel at Kaho'olawe, Hawaii, and Tundra Bean Goose at Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. And for the third year in a row the wintering Dusky Thrush in Anchorage, Alaska failed to show on count day. Many lofty species totals were attained during the 114^th CBC, including a first-time-ever total of over 500 species in Latin America—participants at Yanayacu, Ecuador tallied 531 species on count day, again besting their neighbor Mindo-Tandayapa (at a still mind-boggling 464 species). In the United States and Canada, Matagorda County-Mad Island Marsh, Texas retained top billing at 228 total species. Table 3 is the complete list of 127 counts where participants tallied 150 or more species during the 114^th Christmas Bird Count.

Table 3:  Counts with 150 or more species recorded in the 114th (2013-2014) CBC

Table 3a:  Counts north of the United States-Mexican border

Count             Rank      Count Name                                                                                   Species

Code                                                                                                                                  Recorded

Table 3b:  Counts south of the United States-Mexican border

At the opposite end of the species total spectrum are the counts that are conducted in the high arctic regions at the fringes of the continent in Alaska and Canada. For the first times since it was begun in the 88^th CBC, the Prudhoe Bay count in Alaska was unable to be conducted this season—we hope it can be included again in upcoming counts. The cumulative species list for that count remains at one—Common Raven. Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, was the only CBC in the 114^th to tally just one species (yes, Common Raven!) but it does contain four on its cumulative list since the 102^nd Count. The counts in the outposts of ornithological coverage have their own unique appeal, whether in the Polar regions or far at sea; the special excitement is just being able to *do* the count, or not how high the species tally will be but *if* it will be! While we don’t include a table with the counts with the lowest species totals each season, there’s always interest in what counts were blessed with high species diversity on their respective count days in each region, and Table 4 lists all the counts tallying highest species total in each region during the 114^th Christmas Bird Count.

Table 4:  Regional high counts for the 114^th (2013-2014) CBC

Region                                # of CBCs                                                   Highest Count (species total)

Overall, as mentioned much of North America returned to an “old time” or at least average winter during the 114^th Count. Regional editors over much of the northern and eastern parts of the continent remarked on cold and/or stormy conditions during the count period. Because of the colder and more frozen conditions in the north, waterfowl and lingering marsh birds were pushed southward, ahead of the ice and snow lines. Troubling negative trends with two species (Northern Bobwhite and Loggerhead Shrike) continue in many regions, even as other species drift ever farther northward. In general “winter finches” were notable by their absence, perhaps not surprising at all after the banner season for fringillids and frugivores last year during the 113^th CBC. For more detailed information please have a look at the regional summaries either through the map containing all counts in the 114^th CBC or via the list of summaries . 

If you’re interested in irruptive species like owls and winter finches, don’t forget to have a look at the two newest CBC videos that were produced after last season. There’s one on owls, and particularly Snowy Owls, and another on the phenomenon of a “winter finch winter” (even in the absence of such!). Enjoy!

But in the 114^th Christmas Bird Count, the historic story was that of the all-time record Snowy Owl invasion. Perhaps most unusual about this flight was that it was the third season in a row where there was a major flight of Snowy Owls; during the 112^th CBC they covered a large swath from the Pacific to the Atlantic across southern Canada and the northern United States, while in the 113^th Count there was an even larger flight into the interior of the Pacific Northwest and western Canadian Provinces. During the 114^th Count, it was an eastern event—eastern Canada, the Great Lakes, and the Atlantic seaboard into the Deep South had record numbers of Snowy Owls. All told, 1117 Snowy Owls were tallied on 399 different CBCs; the previous high number was 563 Snowies on 261 counts two seasons ago during the 112^th Count. Many counts had double-digit tallies of Snowy Owls (the highest being 33 at Nantucket, Massachusetts), though interestingly these numbers did not approach the record high single count totals for this species. That still belongs to Ladner, British Columbia back in the 74^th CBC, when they tallied 107 Snowy Owls there. We can only imagine what the overall total number of Snowy Owls would have been this past season if the weather had not played such a major factor—we know that just one cancelled count at Cape Race, Newfoundland likely reduced the tally by perhaps 200 birds. And that location would likely have shattered the all-time record for Snowy Owls on a single count.

Another indication of the historic magnitude of this irruption was the number of Snowy Owls banded during the season at Logan Airport in Boston, Massachusetts. Norman Smith of the Massachusetts Audubon Society has been studying and banding Snowy Owls at Logan since 1981, and his prior record for capturing birds during a season at the airport had been 43. This past winter in mid-March he released the 100th Snowy Owl captured and banded from Logan—with time still left in the season. By the end of the winter a record-shattering 120 had been caught and banded at Logan, with 176 in total banded in the Massachusetts Bay region.

This huge owl flight also catalyzed an innovative new project—SNOWstorm—the brainchild of Dave Brinker from Maryland DNR, bander Steve Huy, ornithologist and writer Scott Weidensaul, Norman Smith and others. Working with dozens of collaborators, the SNOWstorm team was able to capture, band, and place GPS transmitters on 22 Snowy Owls from Minnesota to New England this winter, and data from the travels of these birds has been astounding. Have a look at the SNOWstorm website (www.projectsnowstorm) to see what’s being learned.

Conventional wisdom—and in fact the reality for some owl irruptions—was that owls move when food resources crash on the breeding grounds, leading to starving and stressed owls moving southward. This season the opposite was true; there had been an over-abundance of mammalian prey on the tundra in the Arctic, which enabled the production of many, many healthy young owls. Most of the owls caught both at Logan and for Project SNOWstorm were healthy and in excellent physical condition, and were likely easily able to return to the arctic during the summer of 2014, though some young owls were documented lingering far to the south of their expected summer range even into June. What will the lemmings and other prey items for arctic predators send us for the winter of 2014-2015? Researchers documented another record nesting season in parts of the Canadian Arctic, and early indications show a strong flight of Snowy Owls again this year. The upcoming 115th Christmas Bird Count will help us learn.

Over the past couple of decades you’ve been hearing about the acceptance of Christmas Bird Count data—and citizen science data sets in general—for analyses in long-term, scientific studies of bird trends and distribution. Federal entities, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), independent researchers, and various other bird conservation groups have all used CBC data for analyses in a growing library of studies looking into the status of birds across the hemisphere. Until 2014 these studies had been analyzing data collected in past seasons, to see “how the birds are doing” when compared to the present. This fall, the National Audubon Society released a ground-breaking study looking at the future of bird conservation—and of the status of nature in the century to come. Audubon’s Birds and Climate Change Report; 314 Species on the Brink is the first study incorporating Christmas Bird Count data to present predictive, quantitative analyses of how bird species are likely to fare over the next century in the face of climate change. In a nutshell, of 588 species of North American birds sampled by the CBC or the Breeding Bird Survey, 314 are considered to be “climate threatened” or “climate endangered”, meaning that they will likely need to move elsewhere or adapt to a less suitable climate. Many familiar species including a host of “state birds” are included on this list. This study is uniquely comprehensive, and is only the initial presentation of a series of analyses of similar vein. While of significant concern for many species, the results are also a call to action for both future bird conservation plans (including planning for Important Bird Areas) and strategies to ameliorate climate change catalysts on local, national, and international levels. And each and every Christmas Bird Count observer on all counts over the past 114 years has played an important role in helping define the future course of action to address the concerns of global climate change on the environment we share with birds and other wildlife.

As all of us who participate on Christmas Bird Counts or any other day in the field know, some days are better than others. For me, the 114^th CBC period was one of high hopes—but less success. A major storm was predicted for the first weekend of the count period locally, when I was scheduled to do two CBCs. The first came off without a hitch—but without me, as the predicted weather would have precluded returning for a second count, more local count, that weekend. But the storm was at full fury on Sunday, causing postponement of that second count to the following Saturday. Unfortunately, that conflicted with a third count on the coast, one with lower expected participation and on which I am a party leader. Thus my completed count tally for the season was to be one, rather than my expected three.

The weather on count day was great, and it was wonderful to see my traditional field partner Doug, with whom I’d last spoken a year earlier on the same count. It was surprisingly warm, with calm wind and sunny skies—and as often the case under such conditions, amazingly few birds. We had high hopes for a Snowy Owl at the National Wildlife Refuge where we usually spend the entire second part of the day, and also where our old friend the Lesser Black-backed Gull was likely to be found. But alas, none of that was to be—the refuge was closed to the public for a special event. We skirted the thickets at the edge of the refuge, but could not access the open areas where owls or other winter raptors may have been or the coastal pond where the gull was waiting to be tallied, instead using our afternoon to bolster numbers of juncos, White-throated, Song, and American Tree sparrows. It was a very nice day of birding and it was great to see my friends on the count—but certainly not the results I’d anticipated.

I did end up catching up with that Lesser Black-backed Gull, right on its “usual” rock in its “usual” cove, some weeks later. And I did manage to see a spectacular Snowy Owl that was located on a local CBC (though not one I attended) a few days after the count on the coast. Was my one count last season a failure? Absolutely not! It was a wonderful day in the field birding with a great friend, followed by the camaraderie and excitement that always builds as field party lists are read at a count compilation gathering. It contributed meaningful data to a CBC that has been run since 1925, part of a long-term census that now spans 114 years. It wasn’t the season I’d anticipated, but it was a great one.

And you can bet I’ll be back this season, binoculars and scope in hand, hoping for that Snowy Owl.