Peninsula birders perform annual counts

Every winter since 1900, volunteers across the country have headed out with binoculars to identify every bird they see and submit the results to the National Audubon Society for its Christmas Bird Count, which the conservation organization calls the country’s longest-running bird census.

The data collected during the annual event, which runs from Dec. 14-Jan. 5, is used by scientists, conservationists, wildlife agencies and other entities to identify trends and patterns that can be used to further understanding about birds, their habitat and the environment and to add to the body of scientific knowledge.

The four Christmas Bird Counts on the North Olympic Peninsula include Sequim-Dungeness, Port Angeles and Neah Bay counts by the Olympic Peninsula Audubon Society, and the Port Townsend by the Admiralty Audubon Society.

Bob Boekelheide, who compiled information gathered during the 47th Sequim-Dungeness Christmas Bird Count on Dec. 19, said that, despite freezing temperatures, about 135 volunteers participated.

Boekelheide called the Christmas Bird Count a “snapshot in time” that is a good but not necessarily the most scientifically rigorous measure of all the birds in a particular area.

However, its organized, consistent and systematic gathering of information over a long period of time does provide valuable data that can provide insights into species, like that of the Western grebe.

“We used to have flocks of a few hundred of them in the Port Angeles harbor area and swimming in the Dungeness, and now there are very few,” Boekelheide said, “and if you look at other Christmas Bird Counts all over the Salish Sea, it’s a species that’s really declined around here in the wintertime.

“But the interesting thing is, in some counts, like in Central California and San Francisco Bay, the Western grebe has increased. So it raises the question, did our birds go down there or did the birds that were here not survive? Or something else?”

While birders can expect to add familiar residents like varied thrushes, eagles and buffleheads to their checklists during the count, there’s always the chance they’ll spot an uncommon species.

Boekelheide said Sequim’s group tallied 143 species this year – close to the count’s average for the last 25 years but quite a bit lower than the event’s all-time record of 154 species, set in 2015.

The total number of individual birds counted this year was 60,048, he said, much higher than the 2022 count of 53,707 but still lower than the all-time high count of 85,777 individuals spotted in 2011.

The most abundant species this year, Boekelheide said, was an expected suspect: Sequim counters spotted 12,347 American Wigeons, of whom one counter (Bob Iddins) spotted more than 4,100 on count day — including 22 Eurasian Wigeons — at Carrie Blake Community Park, Boekelheide noted.

Last year, largely thanks to Iddins and Carrie Blake Community Park, Sequim’s Christmas Bird Count set the high count for the nation.

“I suspect the same thing might happen this year,” Boekelheide said.

Other abundant species, Boekelheide noted, in decreasing order of abundance, included: Mallard (5,722); Dark-eyed Junco (3,928); Northern Pintail (3,414); American Robin (3,231); Glaucous-winged/Olympic Gull (2,512); Dunlin (2,206); Ancient Murrelet (2,165); Green-winged Teal (1,529) and Bufflehead (1522). These top-10 species made up about 64 percent of all birds tallied during the 2023 count, Boekelheide noted.

He said he was impressed with the number of juncos, whose count in 2023 (3,928) far exceeded the previous record count of 2,646 set last year. Fifteen different counting groups tallied more than 100 juncos on their lists, with the highest count in the West Dungeness area.

Read more about Sequim’s Christmas Bird Count at olympicpeninsulaaudubon.org/christmas-bird-count-results.

File photo by Keith Thorpe/Olympic Peninsula News Group Bird watchers search for water fowl on Dungeness Bay from Dungeness Landing County Park north of Sequim during the Olympic BirdFest in 2019.