Bird Counts
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Our year got off to its traditional New Year's Day jump start with the Christmas Bird Count. During the rest of January we've added numerous species that typically are not found within the count circle as well as a number of species that are less than annual in Cowlitz County.
The most unlikely find was a Turkey Vulture that was found at Willow Grove in early January. While this species will be ubiquitous in a couple months, mid-winter is an not the time we usually find them. Although it seems every year one or more are found trying to over winter in Washington, they typically have perished by January.
Besides the one in Cowlitz a few have been found in the Puget Sound area as well as farther downstream on the Columbia River into January this year, including a few still around after our recent rare long snow and freezing episode. Amazing!
Download the pdf file here.
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The Great Backyard Bird Count is scheduled for Feb 17-20, 2017. This is citizen science at its best. You can view and report birds wherever you are during this weekend. Last year over 5000 people participated around the world and reported over 18 million individual birds.
Please go to www.gbbc.birdcount.org for information on participation.
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Acorn Woodpecker - Image courtesy of the US FWS
Here is what bird list maintainer Russ Koppendrayer's says of 2016:
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Clark's Nutcracker - Image courtesy of the US FWS
Russ Koppendrayer's says of the last two months:
Only three species added to the list in the last couple months as is typical for this time of year. Also fairly typical was the fact that all three are rare visitors to our area. An amazing ten Clark's Nutcrackers were seen at the Forest Learning Center near the Mt. St. Helens National Monument. This species is common to the Cascade crest near Mt. Adams, but this is only the third record in Cowlitz County. A Brown Pelican was photographed flying rapidly UPSTREAM at Woodland, a species that rarely comes anywhere near this far up the Columbia and is more associated with salt water. Also a third record for Cowlitz was a Pelagic Cormorant photographed swimming in the Columbia at Woodland. As its name suggests this too is a species that rarely gets upstream past the brackish water of the estuary.
Two months left for some more exciting finds, so as usual get out there and do some birding.
Download the pdf file here.
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Russ Koppendrayer's take:
As is fairly typical of the July - August period we added only a few species, primarily regular species that we had missed earlier and some that we find most years, but also sometimes miss.
Coming up is that late fall and early winter season which can be most productive for vagrants that have never been encountered in the county before or only once or twice. Many times these are young birds that get their migration route a little confused.
Let's get out there and enjoy the movement of the birds.
Download the pdf file here.