Mild weather greeted throngs of locals who were taking part in the 2020 Grand Marais Audubon bird count held Saturday, December 12.
Outfitted with binoculars, guidebooks, and logbooks, keen eyed locals recorded 40 species of birds, with more than 2,000 individual birds counted, which is usual number, reported Jeremy Ridlbauer, Grand Marais Audubon Christmas Bird Count Compiler.
Bird counters worked in a circle area that is a 7.5-mile radius circle from a point three miles south of the middle of Devil Track Lake. The count circle covers Highway 61 to Lindskog Road and north, some of County Rd 60, the Gunflint Trail to the county landfill road, Pine Mountain Road to the backside of Elbow Lake, Devil Track Road to Bally Creek Road, Ball Club Road to The Grade, Pike Lake Road, and Highway 61 west to Cascade Lodge, and all of the lakeshore between Lindskog Road and Cascade Lodge.
Some typical species weren’t found on Saturday, but Ridilbauer said new species could be added to the list if they were reported by December 22.
As always, there were a few unusual types of bird spotted in the count circle. One new species was a King Eider reported by Harvey Sobieck.
Here is the list of birds counted in order of abundance on the bird count day with two added on the bird count week: Black-capped Chickadee, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Bohemian Waxwing, Common Raven, Blue Jay, White-winged Crossbill, Herring Gull, American Crow, Common Redpoll, Downy Woodpecker, Rock Pigeon, Hairy Woodpecker, Pine Grosbeak, Common Goldeneye, Long-tailed Duck, Ruffed Grouse, White-crowned Sparrow,
House Sparrow, Dark-eyed Junco, Whitebreasted Nuthatch, European Starling, Pileated Woodpecker, Bald Eagle, Northern Cardinal, Gray Jay, Evening Grosbeak, American Robin, Whitethroated Sparrow, Northern Shrike, Northern Goshawk, Pine Siskin, Fox Sparrow, Rough-legged Hawk, Pine Warbler, King Eider, Hermit Thrush, Lincoln’s Sparrow, Canada Goose, and two birds only seen during the count week were a Great Gray Owl and Black-backed Woodpecker, which brought the number of species counted to 42 for the week.
The “count week” happens for three days prior and three days after the Saturday count.
Some history of the Audubon bird count
While the Audubon’s National CBC effort began Christmas Day 1900, the first known Minnesota CBCs were conducted on Christmas Day 1905 in Minneapolis and Red Wing. During those last 111 years, the Christmas Bird Count has been conducted uninterrupted in the state and has grown to include almost 70 census circles and involved more than 28,000 participants.
Every year more than 1,000 participants canvas the state to conduct the survey. These participants have logged nearly 77,000 total hours, traveling approximately 548,000 miles. The Minnesota CBC has tallied over 8.5 million birds, which covers 201 species.
Today, over 55,000 volunteers from all 50 states, every Canadian province, parts of Central and South America, Bermuda, the West Indies, and Pacific islands count and record every individual bird and bird species seen in a specified area. Each counting group completes a census of the birds found during one 24-hour period between December 14 and January 5 in a designated circle 15 miles in diameter, about 177 square miles.
Why count birds?
The information gathered by the bird counts allows conservation biologists, Audubon researchers and wildlife agencies to study the long-term health and status of bird populations in North America. This data, when combined with the Breeding Bird Survey, provides researchers with a picture of how the bird populations have changed in time and space across the continent over the last hundred and twenty years.
Conservationists and wildlife researchers put the various pieces of information gathered from the bird count together like a puzzle and map out strategies to protect birds and their habitats, and also identify environmental issues that effect people as well.
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