I set two alarm clocks to 5 A.M., a precaution as sleep the night before the annual Christmas Bird Count is predictably fitful. By that hour I am wide-awake and ready to go! Sounds during the night were particularly ominous; the splattering of water from the roof on my patio confirmed the prediction that a light rain would persist throughout the night into Sunday morning, the day of the count. Birding in the rain is birding at its worst! Cold, snow, wind, heat, and even the annoyance of insects are preferable!
Our field team of five rendezvoused at the College of St. Joseph at 7:00 a.m. It was one of eight field teams designed to cover the eight sectors into which the 15-mile diameter standard count circle had been divided. We consolidated into two cars, equipped with a pair of radios in case we became separated. We were off, enveloped by ground fog and under a light rain.
At our first stop at the Otter Creek, mostly free of ice, we scanned for ducks but with no luck. For the next 45 minutes we confined ourselves to urban side streets, checking local feeders, preferably the ones that the homeowners had remembered to fill. The early birds did not fail us. We noted the usual feeder activity, Black-capped Chickadees, a Tufted Titmouse, an American Goldfinch, a Downy Woodpecker, a pair of Northern Cardinals, White-breasted Nuthatches, and a welcome Red-breasted Nuthatch calling from a Norway Spruce besides a clutch of Mourning Doves. Leaving the city behind, we headed for Boardman Hill where a farm hedgerow yielded a large flock of Wild Turkey and, above in a gnarled maple, a Red-bellied Woodpecker. The heavily wooded Quarterline Road was good for a raucous pair of Pileated Woodpeckers, heard and then seen. It was also good for a flock of well over 100 Bohemian Waxwing and, for some of our group, the first good look at this year’s irruption of northerners.
Turning east into Walker Mountain Road we made for Clarendon and the Otter Creek floodplain. The ground fog was still intense but lifting, the rain had ceased and above a patch or two of blue, a promise and a stimulus to press on! Press on we did and fortunately in the second car a pair of sharp eyes made out the obscure silhouette of a Great Blue Heron pacing a narrow drainage ditch seeking a morsel on which to sustain it. We would return at noon when the skies cleared to find the bird still there, an extraordinary and memorable scene.
Great Blue Heron observed during the count
The day progressed under partly cloudy skies, temperatures were moderate in the 37° F to 46° range, balmy enough in fact for us to take a lunch break at a picnic table adjacent to the local firehouse. Refreshed, we continued, bird by bird, species upon species, 29, 30, 31… would we make 32? Eyes tired, with light failing once again, it took a sharp-eyed observer to make out the silhouette of a raptor perched across the Otter Creek among the bare limbs of a tree. A quick U-turn and with the aid of a spotting scope, we had species number 32, a Sharp-shinned Hawk. Time to pack it in, freshen up, and make our way to the potluck supper and count down.
The traditional potluck supper was held at the Proctor Free Library with 35 in attendance, representing all the eight field teams and several feeder watchers. Following an excellent spread, it was time for a provisional countdown of the day’s sightings and highlights. Final numbers revealed that 51 species had been tallied and 9,260 individual birds counted, the combined effort of 31 field observers and 7 feeder watchers. Rutland County’s thirty-seventh Christmas Bird Count was now history and part of the national record that going back one hundred and ten years (this being the one hundred and eleventh national annual count).
Here are the numbers (bold indicates species with numerical highs, along with previous high):
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Sharp-shinned Hawk 4 Cooper’s Hawk 5 Red-tailed Hawk 24 Rough-legged Hawk 1 Peregrine Falcon 1 Ruffed Grouse 3 Wild Turkey 206 Rock Pigeon 364 Mourning Dove 474 Barred Owl 7 [6] Belted Kingfisher 1 Red-Bellied Woodpecker 5 [4] Downy Woodpecker 59 Hairy Woodpecker 35 Pileated Woodpecker 16 [12] Horned Lark 4 Blue Jay 261 |
American Crow 1,345 Common Raven 41 [25] Black-capped Chickadee 1,065 Tufted Titmouse 118 Red-breasted Nuthatch 72 White-breasted Nuthatch 140 Brown Creeper 11 Carolina Wren 15 [6] Golden-crowned Kinglet 14 Eastern Bluebird 36 American Robin 25 Bohemian Waxwing 798 [250] Great blue Heron 1 Canada Goose 571 American Black Duck 61 Mallard 318 Common Merganser 10 |
Cedar Waxwing 88 European Starling 1,465 Northern Cardinal 116 American Tree Sparrow 228 Song Sparrow 4 White-throated Sparrow 9 Slate-colored Junco 159 Snow Bunting 165 Red-winged Blackbird 6 Rusty Blackbird 4 Brown-headed Cowbird 1 Purple Finch 7 House Finch 221 Common Redpoll 87 Pine Siskin 3 American Goldfinch 187 House Sparrow 399 |