2019 Christmas Bird Count

2019 OKC Audubon CBC Results

OKC Audubon conducted its annual CBC on Saturday Dec 14 and we had 26 count teams and 50 participants in the field including six new participants! A couple of our perineal teams were not able to participate but we look forward to their contributions next year!

A few participants were ambitious and conducted owling and were treated to temps in the mid-40s with very light southwesterly winds. However, shortly after sunrise a frontal boundary rolled through and winds switched all the around to the northeast sustained at ~10 mph for the rest of the day. The daytime low barely dipped below 40 degrees but the sun finally came out by mid-afternoon where it moderated back up into the mid-40s. Our efforts comprised of 113 party-hours and 289 miles walked/driven resulted in an impressive 115 species and a total of 47,951 birds.

Several species were extra noteworthy based on range and/or season as a Lesser Goldfinch amazingly spotted by the Holbrook/Hacker team tops the list! White-winged Scoter, Red-necked Grebe, American Woodcock and Franklin’s Gull (3) round out the top five rarities.

Trends also continue to be monitored which includes almost being shut-out on Common Mergansers if not for the heroics of Matt Jung. However, on the flip side, the Shackford team found an impressive flock of nine Chipping Sparrows and along those lines a total of 15 Eastern Phoebes were tallied from 10 separate count teams. Limited shoreline/mudfats at Hefner and Overholser likely contributed to missing on Least Sandpiper and being down on Killdeer.

Other impressive birds and/or numbers include 819 American White Pelicans, 14 Great Egrets, 13 Marsh Wrens (Kuhnert team found eight on the north side of Overholser). Also noteworthy were five Killdeer found at a pond by the Brueggen/Steward team and Brian Marra added an impressive Count Week bird (Surf Scoter) on Dec 15.

I look forward to our club’s monthly meeting on Jan 27 (7 pm) at the Will Rogers Garden Center to give a brief summary and answer questions about the Count. Ed Godfrey of The Oklahoman wrote a really nice story (link below) on this year’s Count- https://oklahoman.com/article/5649931/christmas-comes-early-for-oklahoma-city-birders

Participants include Steve Davis, Mary Lane; Bill Diffin, Chase Moxley; Carla Bruggen, Feodora Steward; Neil Garrison, Danny Odom; Mark Howery, Sharon Henthorn; Patti Muzny, Nancy Vicars, Brian Munzy; Hal Yocum, Cheryl Allen; Brian Marra, Deanne McKinney, Grace Huffman; Betz Hacker, Robert Holbrook; Jerry Taylor, Marilyn Taylor; John Sterling; Larry Mays, Aaron Mechem, Jennie Brooks; Morton Payne, Matthew Payne, Johnson Hightower, Steve Parker; John Shackford, Warren Harden, Jack Tyler, Terri Underhill; Jimmy Woodard, Mark DelGrosso, Nadine Varner; Patricia Velte; Jacob Crissup, Jerry Vanbebber; James Hubbell and nephew, Lisa Hubbell; Matt Jung; Nathan Kuhnert, Susan Prescott, Kathleen Tucker, Janiece Gratch, Janet Combs, and Cynthia Barnes and kudos to John Shackford for organizing the wonderful compilation dinner at Johnnie’s in Edmond.

The complete list is below. Thank you for making this a very special Count!

Nathan Kuhnert, Compiler

2019 Christmas Bird Count Species List

Cackling Goose 74
Canada Goose 791
Wood Duck 4
Gadwall 189
American Wigeon 45
Mallard 805
Northern Shoveler 428
Northern Pintail 1
American Green-winged Teal 19
Canvasback 156
Redhead 21
Ring-necked Duck 208
Greater Scaup 1
Lesser Scaup 114
Bufflehead 68
Common Goldeneye 76
Hooded Merganser 88
Common Merganser 1
Red-breasted Merganser 99
Ruddy Duck 110
White-winged Scoter 1
Surf Scoter (Count Week) 1
Common Loon 18
Pied-billed Grebe 201
Horned Grebe 78
Red-necked Grebe 4
Eared Grebe 1
American White Pelican 879
Double-crested Cormorant 1086
Great Blue Heron (blue form) 87
Great Egret 14
Black-crowned Night-Heron 7
Bald Eagle 1
Northern Harrier 1
Sharp-shinned Hawk 6
Cooper’s Hawk 6
Accipiter sp. 1
Red-shouldered Hawk 12
Red-tailed Hawk 86
American Kestrel (Northern) 26
Merlin 2
American Coot 576
Killdeer 13
Greater Yellowlegs 23
Wilson’s Snipe 7
American Woodcock 1
Bonaparte’s Gull 256
Franklin’s Gull 3
Ring-billed Gull 10468
Herring Gull 58
Lesser Black-backed Gull 1
Forster’s Tern 5
Rock Pigeon 406
Eurasian Collared-Dove 134
White-winged Dove 67
Mourning Dove 78
Greater Roadrunner 1
Great Horned Owl 1
Barred Owl 1

Belted Kingfisher 25
Red-headed Woodpecker 2
Red-bellied Woodpecker 41
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker 9
Downy Woodpecker 56
Hairy Woodpecker 4
Northern Flicker 79
Pileated Woodpecker 2
Eastern Phoebe 15
Blue Jay 214
American Crow 197
Horned Lark 12
Carolina Chickadee 128
Tufted Titmouse 25
White-breasted Nuthatch 1
Brown Creeper 1
Carolina Wren 97
Bewick’s Wren 5
Winter Wren 3
Marsh Wren 13
Golden-crowned Kinglet 3
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 19
Eastern Bluebird 83
Hermit Thrush 1
American Robin 2053
Northern Mockingbird 77
Brown Thrasher 13
European Starling 18889
American Pipit 1
Cedar Waxwing 368
Orange-crowned Warbler 1
Common Yellowthroat 2
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle) 174
Spotted Towhee 19
American Tree Sparrow 1
Chipping Sparrow 10
Field Sparrow 14
Savannah Sparrow 22
Fox Sparrow 12
Song Sparrow 171
Lincoln Sparrow 9
Swamp Sparrow 9
White-throated Sparrow 46
Harris’s Sparrow 219
White-crowned Sparrow 61
Dark-eyed Junco 460
longspur species 25
Northern Cardinal 217
Red-winged Blackbird 3512
Eastern Meadowlark 45
meadowlark sp. 6
Common Grackle 86
Great-tailed Grackle 1958
Brown-headed Cowbird 1
House Finch 71
Pine Siskin 4
American Goldfinch 230
Lesser Goldfinch 1
House Sparrow 164