Random Rants and Ramblings: 2015 Great Backyard Bird Count Summary

I have put together my final stats for this year's Great Backyard Bird Count. I submitted 44 checklists during the four days of counting. Those checklists included 76 species. One species, the Tree Swallow, was flagged as a rarity. This is not actually a rare bird, but it has arrived early this year. I walked over 61 miles and spent over 31 hours not including travel time. I have included a table breaking down these stats by location. Note that there is a column for revised distance. Although I usually input distances straight from my GPS, bird counts are not supposed to include areas that were repeated due to backtracking. For the bird count, I removed the repeated areas before submitting checklists, and the revised distances in the table reflect the distances I reported with my checklists. Due to rounding, numbers should not always match up with the checklists.

Birding locations:

Location	Days	Lists	Dist	Dist (Rev)	Time	Birds
Chambers Creek Properties	4	31	39.84 miles	30.38 miles	18:02	3593
Point Defiance Park	2	6	6.48 miles	4.37 miles	03:22	1731
Titlow Park	1	2	1.6 miles	1.23 miles	01:04	315
Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge	1	2	6.58 miles	4.51 miles	04:51	1714
South Puget Sound Wildlife Area	1	1	1.19 miles	1.09 miles	00:43	23
Fort Steilacoom Park	2	2	5.88 miles	4.35 miles	03:32	806
Total	4	44	61.57 miles	45.93 miles	31:35	8182

I have pictures that I need to go through. I will likely post to my photo blog when I am done with them.

I created a spreadsheet to help with calculations. This was primarily for personal use, so it's not ideally formatted for public viewing. Hopefully, most people can figure out most of the spreadsheet by looking through the data and formulas. There is one thing that needs clarification. To count species, I had to create columns to identify what actually qualifies as a bird species. In those columns (usually headed with the letter Y), I used the following:
M: Mammal
R: Reptile
S: Species
X: Do not count as a species

The spreadsheet can be found at:
https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=2E6EFB80915ED5BD!8500&authkey=!AMK0uZdrlOjtWas&ithint=file%2cxlsx

Final Lists

Daily posts

2015 Great Backyard Bird Count - Day 1

2015 Great Backyard Bird Count - Day 2

2015 Great Backyard Bird Count - Day 3

2015 Great Backyard Bird Count - Day 4

Birds encountered during the bird count:

Greater White-fronted Goose, Cackling Goose, Canada Goose, Wood Duck, Gadwall, Eurasian Wigeon, American Wigeon, Mallard, Northern Shoveler, Northern Pintail, Green-winged Teal, Ring-necked Duck, Greater Scaup, Lesser Scaup, Surf Scoter, Bufflehead, Common Goldeneye, Hooded Merganser, Common Merganser, Red-breasted Merganser, Ruddy Duck, Pied-billed Grebe, Horned Grebe, Red-necked Grebe, Brandt's Cormorant, Double-crested Cormorant, Pelagic Cormorant, Great Blue Heron, Northern Harrier, Bald Eagle, Red-tailed Hawk, American Coot, Killdeer, Dunlin, Least Sandpiper, Pigeon Guillemot, Mew Gull, Ring-billed Gull, Glaucous-winged Gull, Rock Pigeon, Band-tailed Pigeon, Mourning Dove, Great Horned Owl, Anna's Hummingbird, Belted Kingfisher, Red-breasted Sapsucker, Downy Woodpecker, Northern Flicker, Peregrine Falcon, Steller's Jay, Western Scrub-Jay, Crow (Species not identified), Common Raven, Tree Swallow, Black-capped Chickadee, Chestnut-backed Chickadee, Bushtit, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Brown Creeper, Pacific Wren, Bewick's Wren, Golden-crowned Kinglet, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, American Robin, European Starling, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Spotted Towhee, Fox Sparrow, Song Sparrow, White-crowned Sparrow, Golden-crowned Sparrow, Dark-eyed Junco, Red-winged Blackbird, Western Meadowlark, House Finch, Pine Siskin, House Sparrow

Other noteworthy animals seen during the count:

Eastern Gray Squirrel, North American River Otter, Sea Lion, Harbor Seal, Black-tailed Deer, Painted Turtle, Lizard

My checklists can be found at:

2/28/15 Edit: Pictures are up

I have uploaded pictures to Flickr and posted them to my photo blog.

Random Rants and Ramblings

Pages

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

2015 Great Backyard Bird Count Summary