From the GBBC e Newsletter: February 20, 2014 Although data are still coming in, its clear that the 2014 Great Backyard Bird Count is on track to be another record-breaker! By mid-morning today participants from a record 131 countries had submitted bird checklists, eclipsing last year’s 110 countries. A huge thanks to all who participated! We wanted to share some of the impressive numbers we have so far and a few of the trends we see. You can continue entering checklists for February 14-17 through the GBBC website. If you have lists for those dates that you need to enter after the end of the month, you can do so directly in eBird. Top 10 most frequently reported species (number of checklists reporting this species): Species Number of Checklists Northern Cardinal 53,540 Dark-eyed Junco 51,186 Mourning Dove 44,278 Blue Jay 39,363 Downy Woodpecker 36,766 American Goldfinch 33,396 American Crow 32,381 House Finch 32,271 Tufted Titmouse 31,950 Black-capped Chickadee 30,822 Top 10 most numerous species (sum of the number of individuals observed across all checklists) Species Number of Individuals Red-winged Blackbird 1,570,808 Snow Goose 1,223,082 Canada Goose 1,031,278 European Starling 5542,477 Mallard 493,774 Ring-billed Gull 433,823 American Coot 417,504 Dark-eyed Junco 404,057 American Crow 328,601 American Goldfinch 323,672 Checklists have come from Australia, China, Argentina, Kazakhstan, Iceland, India, Kenya, and even Antarctica! In Canada, participants in British Columbia have racked up the highest provincial species total (192). Participation in the Maritime Provinces is also up with reports from New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador already outstripping last year’s totals even before all the data has been entered. India is the clear superstar outside of North America with more than 3,000 checklists and the greatest number of species reported, a whopping 806! Country Number of Species Number of Checklists United States 643 112,281 Canada 234 12,340 India 806 3,195 Australia 492 854 Mexico 658 451 Costa Rica 554 165 United Kingdom 155 150 Puerto Rico 113 150 Portugal 177 134 Honduras 335 104 In North America, California sits atop the leader board with the most checklists and the greatest number of species so far, but New York is nipping at its heels for the checklist record. Ontario, Canada, has jumped into the top 10 for checklists, outdistancing even big birdy states such as Texas, Florida, and North Carolina. State/Province Number of Species Number of Checklists California 358 8,472 New York 165 7,663 Pennsylvania 136 6,945 Ontario 146 6,329 Texas 350 5,526 Florida 307 5,376 Ohio 137 5,214 Virginia 179 4,883 North Carolina 194 4,876 Michigan 127 4,000 These checklist and species numbers will continue to rise as GBBC participants enter their data for the four days of the count through the end of the month. Although much more data have yet to be recorded, here are some of the trends noted so far. • Fewer Finches After last year’s “superflight,” this year’s GBBC reports for 10 irruptive species (mostly finches) are down considerably. This includes reports for the White-winged and Red crossbills, Common and Hoary redpolls, Pine and Evening grosbeaks, Pine Siskin, Purple Finch, Red-breasted Nuthatches, and Bohemian Waxwings. These are believed to be natural fluctuations in numbers because of variation in seed crops. • Snowy Owl Invasion Continues A massive irruption of Snowy Owls into the northeastern, mid-Atlantic, and Great Lakes States of the U.S., as well as southeastern Canada, is easily seen in GBBC numbers. Preliminary results show participants reported more than 2,500 Snowy Owls in 25 states and 7 provinces of the U.S. and Canada! • The Polar Vortex Effect The frigid cold in many parts of North America has resulted in unusual movements of waterfowl and grebes. With the Great Lakes almost completely frozen, some species, such as the White-winged Scoter and the Long-tailed Duck, have fled the frozen lakes and stopped at inland locations where they are not usually found at this time of year.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Feb 2014 20:58:21 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015