The annual Christmas Bird Count is about more than just spotting birds. The continent-wide event, run by the Audubon Society, has been keeping track of the movement and population of birds for over 100 years.
Geoff Rushowick says that this year was one of the best he's seen for birds since he's been taking part. There were 20 total species seen on the count day, with 1073 individuals spotted. Twenty-six people participated in the count, watching feeders or areas where birds often congregate.
Rushowick says one of the main functions of the count is to track trends over a number of years. As an example, he uses ravens, which were very uncommon when he began watching. This year, there were 149 spotted, and he believes it might be a case where they had competition in the area before, but are now more able to take control.
This year had surprises in some Eurasian Collared Doves and some Mourning Doves. Rushowick notes that doves aren't very common in the area, and the collared dove isn't a native species in Yorkton. The introduction of the species is something that is of interest, as charting the changes to the types of species in the area are the purpose of the event.
This year's most common bird was he house sparrow, with 530 individuals spotted. The rock pigeon, common raven and black-capped chickadee were also very common, with 159, 149 and 66 individuals seen respectively. A big change over last year was the snow bunting, which had 79 individuals spotted last year but none in 2011. Rushowick says that with those, it's partially a function of luck, since they move around a lot, though warm weather might also have allowed them to stay further north than they usually go.
Rushowick says that the event wouldn't be possible without all the people counting, whether they are observing feeders or travelling out to different observation spots. He credits everyone involved with making the event a success.
