[cobirds] Fort Collins CBC

I should have posted this last week.  The Fort Collins CBC in Larimer County was completed December 16, 2023.  What a day – warm. sunny, and still with lots of open water this year.  It was amazing the number of people that thought the count seemed quiet, but biodiversity was up.  It did seem relatively quiet, but geese were not flying around that day like normal and crows were low in number.  We had an unbelievable count.  This was the 77^th count, being conducted continuously since 1947.  A note of interest, only 10 species have been seen every year since the inception of the count, which actually surprised me*: (Mallard, Northern Harrier*, Northern Flicker, Black-billed Magpie, Black-capped Chickadee, House Sparrow, House Finch, American Tree Sparrow*, Song Sparrow, and Western Meadowlark*. I was equally surprised that Downy Woodpecker, European Starlings, and Red-winged Blackbirds did not make it (each missing one year), especially common snow or shine in Fort Collins.

 

We had a record number of species on the count – 111.  Our previous high was 103.  We crushed the old record without a new species being seen for the count. Additionally, we had 3 count week species. We did see all the usual species (55 for the last 20 years) but had several rarities including White-winged Scoter (2), Long-tailed Duck (2), Barrow's Goldeneye (6), Iceland (Thayer's) Gull (1), Lesser Black-backed Gull (1), Say's Phoebe (1), Pacific Wren (1), Winter Wren (1), Western Bluebird (1), and Lincoln's Sparrow (3). We saw a lot of other birds that are not seen every year but occasionally.  

High counts were tallied for Ross's Goose (17 vs 16), Bufflehead (28 vs 21), Barrow's Goldeneye (6 vs 2), Hooded Merganser (63 vs 41), Wild Turkey (303 vs 154), Ring-billed Gull (953 vs 678), Long-eared Owl (7 vs 4), White-crowned Sparrow (659 vs 613), and Lincoln's Sparrow (3 vs 2). Some species had much lower numbers than we are accustomed seeing including Norther Shoveler (3 vs the last 5 average), Eurasian Collared-Dove (484 vs 927), American Crow (154 vs 414), and American Robin (447 vs 2,021).  Ring-necked Pheasants have all but disappeared over the last 5 years and no indication they will be back. A note on the Eurasian Collared-Dove: first seen in 2002, rising to a high of 3,177 in 2012, and slowly declining since.  I believe that the "honeymoon-phase" is over for them with disease, lack of resources, and nesting success possibly catching up to them.

 

As far as participants, we had 106 people in the field and 17 participating as feeder watchers. The number of people participating has increase yearly to these record numbers.  It is great to see younger participants as the popularity of birding seems to rise. I must say that cancellations were high this year, but even so, record numbers of people showed up.  However, record numbers of people did not necessarily equate to more effort – just shorter days for some in the field.   

Happy 2024

Tom Hall

Fort Collins

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