Great Backyard Bird Count–Day 1

Since I usually take notes about the wildlife anyway, I decided to go ahead and submit a checklist for my sightings at Chambers Creek Properties today at the Great Backyard Bird Count website. For those who don’t know, the Great Backyard Bird count is four days (February 17-20) when people are asked to count birds for a minimum of 15 minutes and report their sightings. I had to adapt a little since I don’t normally count what I see. My checklist as it was submitted can be seen below.

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Location: University Place, Pierce County, WA
Observation Date : FEB 17, 2012
Start Time: 7:30 AM
Total Birding Time: 5 hours
Party Size: 2
Skill: good
Weather: fair
Snow Depth: No snow was present
Habitat(s):
deciduous woods
scrub
grassland
freshwater
salt water
Number of Species: 38
All Reported: no
Checklist:
Cackling/Canada Goose - 73
American Wigeon - 45
Mallard - 26
Northern Shoveler - 2
Green-winged Teal - 9
Ring-necked Duck - 2
Greater/Lesser Scaup - 8
Surf Scoter - 12
Bufflehead - 5
Common Goldeneye - 7
Common Merganser - 2
Red-breasted Merganser - 5
Pied-billed Grebe - 1
Horned Grebe - 6
Red-necked Grebe - 10
Brandt's Cormorant - 40
Double-crested Cormorant - 3
Great Blue Heron - 4
Bald Eagle - 3
American Kestrel - 1
American Coot - 5
Killdeer - 2
gull sp. - 35
Pigeon Guillemot - 17
Rock Pigeon - 24
Anna's Hummingbird - 1
Belted Kingfisher - 1
Steller's Jay - 2
American/Northwestern Crow - 65
Black-capped Chickadee - 2
American Robin - 9
European Starling - 32
Spotted Towhee - 1
Song Sparrow - 2
Dark-eyed Junco - 4
Western Meadowlark - 13
House Finch - 7
Pine Siskin – 8

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I have looked at some of the early results and have noticed a few interesting things. For starters, I have posted the first checklist for University Place. Also, the checklist that I provided has clearly skewed the state’s current totals for three species. 17 out of 27 (63%) Pigeon Guillemots were reported by me (there were a bunch of them together behind the North Dock, and I used a camera to help count the totals). 13 out of 16 (81%) Western Meadowlarks were reported by me (by a ditch-like area with a few small groups flying that were definitely different and another vocal Meadowlark within camera range). 40 out of 43 (93%) of Brandt’s Cormorants were reported by me (They love the south end of the North Dock and the neighboring piling that attracts Ospreys in the summer. I used a picture to help with the count and made sure not to count the Double-crested Cormorant that was visiting them). Don’t read into this too much. I reported 22% of the Great Blue Herons and had the single most in the state with 4. Anyone who visits Nisqually should be able to beat this number easily. Heck, there hasn’t even been a Bittern reported yet.

I had my camera with me toady, so I took a few pictures. A selection of these pictures has been uploaded, and they can be seen below. I might also upload to the GBBC website.