The Birding Year in the Pacific Northwest

December: Common Birds

Written by Andy McCormick

Andy McCormick, Volunteer and Former Board President of Eastside Audubon

It was dark but not very cold at 5:30 a.m. in the Snoqualmie Valley of Washington on December 17. It was Christmas Bird Count (CBC) day and my birding and life partner Carol, and I were out pre-dawn hoping to start the count day with a Great Horned or Barn Owl. We parked at the side of the road by the bank of the Snoqualmie River which flowed quietly behind us as we looked to the west over fallow farm fields. A few lights glowed in the distance, but the fields were dark, and we would feel lucky to see a bird as we stood by the car in the quiet. This was the beginning of our annual ritual of a day of counting birds. After 30 minutes of listening and occasionally playing tape recorded calls for owls and scanning the field with our lithium battery-powered flashlight, we had not heard or seen any owls. Winter owling is an uncertain proposition.

Dawn approached as a thin line of light widened on the eastern horizon bringing with it the familiar quack-quack-quack calls of Mallards in the wet field and the whiney chimp call of a Song Sparrow in the shrubs along the road. We thought for sure that our owling search was over, when unexpectedly, we heard the call of a Northern Pygmy-Owl, a small brown owl with yellow eyes slightly taller than six inches. It typically inhabits foothills and mountain forests, but some, like this owl, will move to lowlands in winter. We had not played tape recordings because we had not expected one to be in the valley at this time of year, but the call was unmistakable. Grateful for our success, we headed off to join the rest of our party who would meet us at a local grocery store to begin the day’s full count at 8:00 a.m.

ORIGIN OF THE CBC

At the turn of the 19th to the 20th Century many Americans had the feeling of living in a world of abundance in nature and that the world belonged to them. Hunting was part of everyday American life at the time. Many people hunted out of necessity to feed themselves and their family, and others hunted for sport. Bird shooting was popular in England and had been imported to the United States by European settlers, and one popular bird shooting event was held in the afternoon of Christmas Day. Passenger Pigeons, now extinct, were often the target, but other birds were also shot in the shooting spree. The “winners” of the bird shoot were those who killed the most birds.

By the late 19th Century there was an increasing awareness that killing so many birds was not such a good idea. Some “bird people” learned that birds were being killed for the millinery trade which used plumes from herons and egrets and whole small birds for ladies’ hat decorations. The Audubon Society was formed in 1905 by women opposed to this slaughter of birds. They were familiar with the popular bird art of John James Audubon and chose his name for the Audubon Society.

A few years earlier in 1900, 36-year-old Frank Chapman, who had already served on the staff of the American Museum of Natural History was in the forefront of educating people about the lives of birds. He had published a Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America in 1895, and his most famous work, Bird-Life: A Guide to the Study of Our Common Birds in 1897. He wanted to stop the wanton killing of birds and as an alternative, he organized 25 groups in the northeastern United States to break with the tradition of killing birds on Christmas Day and to count them instead. He asked people to keep a record of the birds they saw and used the information to inform subsequent editions of the handbook.

TODAY’S CBC

This action began a 125-year survey of birds that now extends throughout North America and in many countries on other continents. These counts involve thousands of volunteers who join teams to count birds every year. As the practice of counting birds spread, it became known as the Christmas Bird Count. Today many people refer to it by its acronym, the “CBC.”

Since not everyone wants to be out counting birds on Christmas Day, and to broaden the opportunity for more people to participate in the count, a three-week period from December 14 to January 5 was designated as the count window within which a CBC team will choose one day to conduct its count. The idea of counting birds within a 15-mile diameter circle was also standardized and the concept of the Count Circle continues as part of the protocol.

Chapman was aware of the importance of keeping lists of birds and the potential for differences in bird populations in different locations. In Bird-Life he included lists of birds contributed by associates of his from seven cities in the north and east of the United States: Washington, DC; Philadelphia, PA; Portland, CN; Cambridge, MA; St. Louis, MO; Oberlin, OH; and Milwaukee, WI. He praised birds for their relation to humans and for their economic, scientific, and aesthetic values. These virtues are still enshrined in birding lore today. He also wrote of the feeling of companionship birds provide humans. He asks rhetorically what a world without birds, their beauty, and their song, would be like.

Chapman also believed in the role of the amateur in ornithology and thought the pursuit of knowledge about birds was primarily a field study. He wrote the Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America as a way to educate the public about birds and encouraged them to get out to enjoy them. He revised it twice to ensure that people had the latest information about the birds he thought of as “the most eloquent expression of Nature’s beauty, joy, and freedom.”

KEEPING COMMON BIRDS COMMON

The concept of appreciating the common birds made explicit in Chapman’s writing finds expression in the CBC. Thousands of people who already love birds, or are curious about them, participate annually in this massive survey of birds which has contributed a century of data on the presence, abundance, status, and distribution of birds.

Today, Partners in Flight also continues the quest to preserve common birds. It is an umbrella organization which develops conservation plans in cooperation with over 150 member/partner governments and private NGOs (non-governmental organizations) such as the National Audubon Society, Bird Life International, and the American Birding Association. Its mission is to “keep common birds common” and has a goal to advance science-based, full life-cycle conservation of land birds in the Americas. Partners in Flight has a sub-group called the Western Working Group which serves the western areas of Canada, the United States, and Mexico.

WATERFOWL WINTER

While Partners in Flight focuses on protecting land birds, other organizations promote the welfare of water birds. The Northwest Swan Conservation Association has played a unique role in the restoration of habitat which has allowed swan and geese populations to expand. Snow Geese, Cackling Geese, and Trumpeter and Tundra Swans have expanded their populations since conservation supports have been put in place. For example, in the Skagit Valley of Washington the association solicited the assistance of private landowners of farms to allow swans and geese to forage in farm fields during the winter. For millennia, the valley had been a marshy wintering area, but over the past century, conversion of the habitat for farming has restricted the land available for birds. Allowing wintering swans and geese access to the fields has restored some of the historical bird habitat.

SNOW GEESE

In the sun, Snow Geese are an unmarked brilliant white. That is, with the exception, of the rarer blue form of the Snow Goose, which appears dark brown from a distance. The only color visible on the white form is the deep black wingtips. The conservation plan established a couple of decades ago has resulted in a stunning population growth with flocks of tens of thousands of Snow Geese massing in fields across the northern United States. As they feed on grass and remnants of crops, the geese at the back of the pack fly forward over the rest of the flock and land in the front, becoming the first to forage in a new area. The feeding process continues in this “leapfrog” fashion and moves the entire flock forward.

At some point the flock is sparked to move and thousands of geese fly up in a swirling storm of white and black circling the field repositioning the flock to continue foraging in a new area. These dramatic short flights have attracted families, birders, and photographers to enjoy the spectacle.

However, Snow Geese may be too successful. As their population has increased, so too has their impact on the environment. Differing from other geese when feeding in marshland, Snow Geese at their nesting locations feed on the tubers of plants and get to them by ripping them out of the ground, thereby removing the entire plant which cannot regrow at that point. Snow Geese can leave behind a destroyed wetland habitat that remains unusable by other species until it can recover, which may take years.

Snow Geese also love potatoes and carrots, and they will search for farms where they can dig up these foods. Farm losses from Snow Geese foraging are mounting and there is now a lack of non-farmland available to support these large flocks. Some measure of control is coming in the form of extending hunting seasons and increasing bag limits for Snow Geese. However, the Snow Geese that winter in the Pacific Northwest coast breed on Wrangle Island, a Russian territory which is off limits for control of geese on the breeding range.

COUNTING COMMON BIRDS

Waterfowl and landbirds are both on CBC checklists and in the Pacific Northwest duck and geese numbers can be large. Cackling Geese, a smaller form similar to Canada Geese, migrate offshore but find wintering areas in farm fields, pastures, golf courses, and parklands along the Pacific Northwest and California coasts and at some inland locations including central Washington and a corner of Nevada. Ducks including American Wigeons, Northern Pintails, Mallards, and Northern Shovelers spend the winter over a wide range from ocean shores, in river valleys, lakes, ponds, and seemingly any available field.

Like the Snow Geese, the Trumpeter and Tundra Swans have made significant comebacks in expanding their populations. Access to agricultural fields have also provided foraging areas for swans. Trumpeter Swans winter along the PNW coast and breed in eastern Alaska and northern British Columbia. Most Tundra Swans bypass the PNW in fall and fly to California and other western states where they spend the winter. Tundra Swans that winter in PNW breed at the western end of the Aleutian Islands.

CONNECT WITH THE CBC

Most CBCs are seeking volunteers to join the bird count, and you can locate information about CBCs in western Washington from the Washington Ornithological Society. The National Audubon Society website includes a map of North America showing CBCs in other areas. Occasionally, teams are treated to a sighting of a rare bird which is always a plus for the volunteers. Bird counters enjoy the company of other people who are also motivated to help count birds because they know the information they gather will be used for assessing the health of our bird populations.