For local Christmas Bird Count participants, on December 17, the day was highlighted with observations of a Northern Shrike, White-winged Scoter, Black-capped Chickadee, and, of course, lots and lots of European Starlings: 1,766, to be exact.
Altogether, our counters observed 48 species and 3,680 individual birds. In cars, on foot, and in view of their backyard feeders, our participants covered a 10-mile radius from the center of Muncie.
To see all the numbers, download a PDF of our 2022 data, and, for comparison, you can also take a look at the December 2021 results, when we had 51 species and 2,413 individual birds.
Eleven RCAS members participated in the 123rd annual Christmas Bird Count on December 17: Drew Bailey, Jim Flowers, Taiping Ho, Sandy Ho, Martha Hunt, Nona Nunnelly, Annette Rose, Jim Schowe, Andy Slack, Barb Stedman, and Brian Wolfe. Special thanks go to Jim Schowe for coordinating the count.
While it will be many months before this year’s national CBC data are fully tallied and analyzed, here are some especially important points from the previous count, which occurred between December 2021 and January 2022:
Nearly 43 million individual birds—representing 2,554 species—were tallied in the 122nd Christmas Bird Count. Of those, 39 million individual birds—and 672 species—were counted in the United States. “This total is on par with the past several seasons but is of concern, as in past decades far more total birds were tallied—averaging 60 to 100 million—30 years ago,” reports the National Audubon Society.
The Audubon Society conducted the first Christmas Bird Count in 1900, making it the Western Hemisphere’s longest-running wildlife census and one of the world’s greatest ongoing citizen-science efforts. Scientists use the data gathered to help track trends in bird populations and address conservation issues.
(Photo of Horned Lark by Martha Hunt.)
Robert Cooper Audubon Society 