Christmas Bird Count Highlights: A Unique Experience
Written by Andy McCormick, CBC Compiler
The COVID-19 pandemic caused significant changes to our Christmas Bird Count this year. We could not form teams and carpools as we have for the past 36 years. However, team leaders were able to cover the CBC sections, and 15 others joined the ranks of our feeder watchers to help complete the count on Saturday, December 19, 2020.
Preliminary reports with 12 of 16 leaders reporting at the time of this writing indicate good numbers of waterfowl with thousands of Cackling Geese reported in the Snoqualmie Valley and around Lake Sammamish. The irruption of winter finches continued and so far, 780 Pine Siskins have been tallied, and a small flock of Red Crossbills was seen on Cougar Mountain.
An excellent find of a Green Heron was spotted at Pickering Ponds in Issaquah. Trumpeter Swans were seen in Redmond. Ruddy Duck and Purple Finch were also spotted in the Redmond-Ames Lake area. Marymoor Park had a flock of 34 Killdeer, a Barn Owl, and a Northern Shrike.
So far, we have reports of six owls in four species. The aforementioned Barn Owl at Marymoor, Barred Owl and Great Horned Owl in the neighborhood above the East Lake Sammamish Trail, Western Screech Owl and Great Horned Owl near Lewis Creek Park, and a Northern Pygmy Owl on Cougar Mountain.
The lakes on the Sammamish Plateau hosted a variety of wintering ducks. A flocks of 28 Common Mergansers and six Common Goldeneye were seen on Pine Lake. Twenty-five Wood Ducks were found on Yellow Lake in Klahanie. Bufflehead were found on Pine Lake and Beaver Lake, and also on Lake Sammamish, at Chinook Bend in Carnation, and on Tradition Lake in Issaquah.
The large flock of Cackling Geese was back in the Carnation Farms area this year. We learned that numbers were down last year due to drone flying at Carnation Farms. We spoke to the director of the farm, which is no longer a dairy farm, but a non-profit agency that trains farmers, and requested that they stop drone flying for the week prior to the count. He agreed, and the geese returned.
I want to thank the team leaders and feeder watchers who participated. To our usual volunteers I want to add that we are sorry we could not gather teams this year. Thank you for your understanding of our need to be careful while conducting the CBC amidst the pandemic. We maintained mask wearing, social distancing, prohibited carpooling, and limited contact with other people we encountered during the day.
A full report of this year’s CBC will be filed with National Audubon and a summary of the report will appear in the March issue of The Corvid Crier.