Diario del proyecto Rock Cut Christmas Bird Count

One often overlooked way to participate in Christmas Bird Counts, is to sign up to count the birds that come to your yard and feeders for a couple of hours. Obviously this would only work if your house is in a count circle, see this map https://audubon.maps.arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html?appid=ac275eeb01434cedb1c5dcd0fd3fc7b4 which shows all of the count circles.

For some people who want to participate but can't due to health or scheduling reasons, or simply find the prospect of going out for the whole day looking for birds they may have never seen before to be a bit daunting, this can be a great alternative. It's just your yard, for about two hours.

Some people ask if there is any value to just counting yard birds for only a couple of hours. The answer is a resounding yes! The idea behind the CBC is to count every bird in a 177 square mile circle, which is regrettably impossible, but the more people who are collecting data, the more of the circle gets covered. The presence of feeder counters means that field counters can work with slightly smaller territories by skipping the neighborhoods that have feeder counters, devoting time elsewhere. I would also add that neighborhoods are just another type of habitat that attracts certain types of birds, but many field counters don't like going into them for fear of looking creepy by driving slowly with binoculars. You can usually tell which counts didn't have feeder counters: low numbers of House Finches, Dark-eyed Junco, House Sparrows, ect.

To go over how to do it, basically you count every bird that you see on the count day for at least a couple of hours. However to avoid double counting birds, you will want to count using a few parameters. First, only include the highest amount per species that you saw at one time, so if you look out and there are three chickadees on the feeders and they fly away and later two come back, you can’t add any to your previous three. If on the other hand they fly away and four come in later, than you would add one to your three because you can physically see four chickadees. Something to remember here that might up your numbers: frequently when a flock birds come to a feeding station, they don’t all come in at once, so if you can see the bushes and trees in your yard, train your binoculars on them, the rest of the flock may be scattered all around your yard and are just coming by ones and twos.
Another thing that is important to remember, sexes don’t count for this, so if you see three male cardinals on your feeders and they fly away and then later four female cardinals fly in you can still only add one to your current three. The reason they are counted in this way, is to avoid giving a count bonus to bird species where the males and females differ (cardinals, finches, woodpeckers, some sparrows) over birds where they don’t differ (chickadees, blue jays, nuthatches, other sparrows). If you remember the cardinal example from earlier, if you switch those to chickadees, you would have no idea if the new ones coming in were males or females. By counting in this way, all of the birds are counted the same.
For a couple of ways to spice up your count a little bit, remember earlier when I said to look in the bushes and trees for more birds, well sometimes you can see other species as well; things like Carolina and Winter Wren, Brown Creeper, Yellow-rumped Warbler (or even other warblers) sometimes hang around flocks of chickadees for the flock protection but aren’t particularly interested in the seeds that are in bird feeders, so they forage in the in foliage until the chickadees are done and they all keep going. Watch for Cooper’s Hawks that may turn up, don’t forget to add them. If you happen to know about an owl that is in your neighborhood, stepping out before dawn or after dark and listening would be a great way to add him to your list and don't forget to add the time spent listening for owls.
Keep a camera handy, if you have a rare bird turn up at the feeder, then you will need to document it and that is much easier with a camera.

When people signup for Christmas Bird Counts, they often focus so heavily on the forest preserves that they end up missing a prime area to find birds: the roadsides.

Driving slowly through the country can yield some incredible birds, some of which are only going to be in the farmland, not in the preserves. Things like Rough-legged Hawks, Horned Larks, Lapland Longspurs, Snow Bunting, Common Grackle, and Snowy Owl. Spending time in this habitat not only gives you the opportunity of finding these birds, but it also gives better coverage on the circle; there is a reason why the compiler assigned multiple square miles but only one or two forest preserves.

Drive Slowly!
Flying along at 45-55 mph might be great for getting from point A to point B, but it's terrible for finding birds between those points. Whether you're driving from one count site to another or you want to spend some time on the roadsides, drive slow, think 15-20 mph and put your windows down.

Look for reasons to stop.
Are you passing over a creek? Stop. Get out of the car and listen. Kingfishers, snipes, chickadees and warblers will often hang out in places like this. Especially if it's below freezing but this creek still has water in it.
Are you driving along a hedgerow? Stop. Get out of the car and listen, chickadees, juncos, accipiters, and shrikes and finches like to take shelter in hedgerows.
White something way out in the field? Stop. Get the scope out, make sure it isn't Snow Goose, swans, or a Snowy Owl. Often it's a bucket but you never know.
A group of birds by the roadside? Stop. Check them out for sparrows, longspurs, buntings and juncos.
Feel like stopping? Do it. You are much more likely to find birds if you're not also concentrating on driving.

Watch for similar birds.
In some areas you can find multiple species but not notice right away. Stopping at grain silos is a good example: most of the doves will be Rock Pigeons and Mourning Doves, but keep and eye out for Eurasian Collared-Doves. Large group of House Sparrows? One time I found some House Sparrows that had half a dozen Eurasian Tree Sparrows in the group, one time there was a female Purple Finch in the mix, one time a Song Sparrow.

Areas like this where you're not dealing with a forest preserve that has a trail system require a little more imagination when you're trying to decide where to look for birds. But for me, that just makes it more interesting. Also remember: try to get out for some scouting prior to the count.

When given an area for a bird count, invariably most of it will be private property that you can't just go waltzing onto to look for birds just because you might have seen a Goshawk. So do you leave all this area uncounted? Well often yes; the compiler will have given you a large enough area that you will be plenty busy in the places that you can be without worrying about places that you can't.

However, this doesn't mean that you have to miss these spots. There is a very simple solution for this: ask permission. I know a guy who gets some of his best finds at a closed kids summer camp, because he contacted the owners and asked if he could count there. The same guy contacted a plant nursery and got their permission to wander around their property. One time I was doing a new count (for me) and saw a huge flock of birds fly into a backyard with a privacy fence, I knocked on the door to ask if I could look in their backyard, and surprise, it was one of my customers. Their yard became a great go-to spot in future years.

As long as you're respectful of people's property and their privacy (don't put an eBird pin right on their house for the Northern Hawk Owl you found without their permission), you'd be amazed at how many more places you can get opened up to you. By the way, if you do get into some private areas, then let the compiler know that you may need a smaller area in order to still get adequate coverage.

The same goes for sites that are seasonally closed, for the Rock Cut CBC for example, many of our sites are closed for the winter, but we got permission from the conservation district to enter those sites on count day, if you do this, I would recommend that you get a letter that you can display on your dashboard which police would see if they get called by a neighbor.

As an aside, if you get permission to go onto an otherwise restricted property, consider keeping a separate list of birds and giving it to the owner afterwards, in most cases you will have birds on there that they've never heard of, and that can get people excited, meaning that they may want you back next year, or you might make a new birder out of them.

In my opinion, golf courses are under-utilized by counters doing CBC's, due to the fact that they are large mostly mowed grass fields that don't look that interesting. However, I've never birded a golf course that I didn't turn up Great Horned Owls. They have water resources in the form of ponds and creeks, and hedge rows surrounding them (see https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/rock-cut-christmas-bird-count/journal/56285-tips-hedgerows-all-of-them). They often have berry bushes, meaning that they usually have Cedar Waxwings.

In 2020 I was asked to lead a couple of winter bird walks at a local golf course that I wasn't familiar with and had never been to. During the scouting trips I made, I was surprised by the variety of birds that turned up, including Belted Kingfisher, Hermit Thrush, Eastern Bluebird and a large number of the most photogenic Cedar Waxwings I've dealt with. The walks ended up being so popular that we did three and I had to recruit assistants because of how many people signed up.

Some golf courses are open in the winter for cross-country skiers. Please bear in mind, do not walk on the ski trails, that makes it harder to ski on them and doesn't foment feelings of good will towards birders.

If the golf course is not open during the winter, consider contacting them and requesting permission to look for birds (see https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/rock-cut-christmas-bird-count/journal/56208-tips-private-property). You might be surprised by what is out there.

Neighborhoods are absolutely hopping with birds, but many people are hesitant to look for birds in neighborhoods for fear of looking creepy. Admittedly, describing someone driving slowly through a neighborhood peering into backyards with a pair of binoculars or camera, might be hard to make sound innocent.

However, neighborhoods often contain orchard pockets, garden plots, bird feeders, hedgerows, and are sometimes in sheltered ravines. Plus, unlike with roadside birding (see https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/rock-cut-christmas-bird-count/journal/56205-tips-roadside-birding) where you might have whole square miles that are not accessible due to lack of roads, neighborhoods are intersected and crisscrossed with so many side streets you'd be amazed at how much time you can spend exploring them. This is also handy if you have a creek running through; check every street that crosses the the creek. So they are definitely worth checking, but how do you make it less creepy?

First thing that helps, is get out and walk. Driving slowly through a neighborhood might look odd, but walking through doesn't look or feel near as creepy, plus you have better hearing.

Second thing: Bicycle. I think bikes are not used nearly enough on these counts anyway, but one of my best counts that had neighborhoods was one where I brought my bike and covered a large chunk of the territory. You move faster than on foot, which is good because you can cover a lot more area with all of the side streets, but you have better hearing and visibility than in a car.

Talk to people. I don't really like talking to people on count day (I've run into some real conversationalists when I'm trying to use as much of the day as possible counting birds,) but I have knocked on doors before to ask if I could stare into their backyard for a few minutes if they had a lot of birds. I prefer to do that when scouting for a count rather then the actual count though.