2016 CBC

Under very adverse conditions, we as a group did a fantastic job this year on the Oklahoma City Christmas Bird Count (CBC). We had 44 participants in 22 parties and counted 111 species of birds. This was more a “team” effort than we have ever had I believe; many parties chipped in a special species here, and a special species there, and it all added up to a quite good count. With a cold temperature of 9 degrees for that 24-hour period we could have wimped out big-time and recorded far fewer than 111 species. With much nicer weather on the count last year, and with 34 participants, we counted 116 species. Given the weather conditions for this year’s count, I was afraid we might not even break a hundred species!

The find of the day was a Baltimore Oriole that appeared—and was well photographed—at Marilyn and Jerry Taylor’s feeders in the southwest part of our count circle. John Bates, who lives near the Taylors, also saw and photographed the bird at his feeders during count week.

Some interesting numbers from the count. There were 27 Ruby-crowned and 10 Golden-crowned Kinglets seen: my personal belief is that the Golden-crowned is slightly more cold tolerant than the Ruby-crowned. When we have more Ruby-crowneds on the CBC, I begin suspect an overall milder fall—but you could not tell this by the temperature on count day!

Some other good finds were 2 Stilt Sandpipers by Muzny party; 5 Hermit Thrushes by Davis, Muzny and Shackford parties; 4 Forster’s Terns by the Velte party; 1 Pileated Woodpecker by Diffin party; 344 Northern Shovelers by Homier, Muzny, Woodard and Woodson (a lot of Northern Shovelers—another bird I do not believe is extremely cold tolerant); 2 Bald Eagles by Sterling and Woodard parties; and 2 Brown Thrashers by Kuhnert and Woodard parties (good work guys—a hard bird to find on cold days!).

We also had two additional forms on count day: Yellow- and Red-shafted Flickers and “normal” Red-tailed and Harlan’s Hawk. During Count Week we recorded Wild Turkeys—6 of them.

The four most common birds counted were Ring-billed Gulls—13,074; Starlings—3,583; American Robin—2,459; and Great-tailed Grackle—1,539. Our total number of individual birds was 31,183, a very low total, I suspect, for our CBCs.

Many thanks go to Patti, Brian and Sam Muzny for hosting the CBC Tally Party. When I arrived at the party it was snowing outside and maybe 15 degrees, so a fire in the fireplace was a very welcome treat! Some people missed the tally party because they did not want to risk the snowy roads and cold temperatures that night. They may have been smarter than some of us diehards who did attend, but the party was a great! For the entire day, I did not hear of any unfortunate stories that happened to anyone—it was a dicey day.

I especially want to again thank Pat Velte, who always does a fantastic job of data entry for our count!

Thanks again to all who participated for toughing it out this year—glad we all survived!