Since I haven't yet gotten around to organizing a CBC/winter count for my area, on a whim yesterday (1/5/09) I went out and covered the high spots of my prospective count circle solo, as many as I could get to before dark. At least this gives some baseline data before I get the real count up and running. I admit part of my incentive was to get the Robin roost counted since it is very unlikely to be there again in future years! I started with a little owling at my own place, turning up one each of Am. Woodcock, Eastern Screech Owl, and Great Horned Owl. With the dreary gray rainy weather all day, I had three more daylight Screech Owls responding to my imitations. Four in one day, after the species was entirely missed by all parties on the Savannah CBC! The rest of the day was running from spot to spot, checking all my maps from last year for where I had marked as "good." The weather toned things down quite a bit; I only had one vulture all day. My species total was 63. The biggest surprise was 4 species of ducks. This is an extremely duck-less area, I didn't expect to get even one. But I came across two Gadwall in a small pond in a cow pasture, and was then shocked to discover that Napier Lake, perhaps because it is severely drawn down, hosted 37 ducks of three additional species! A total of 39 individuals and 4 species is probably about 30 individual and three species higher than my previous best duck day in this county. As I posted earlier, I also had my second Loggerhead Shrike and first "Pink-sided" (Dark-eyed) Junco for the county. For the roost species I just used the roost count for the total, assuming any birds I saw earlier were probably included in the masses at the roost. The "away from roost" numbers are informative for comparison to totals from last year when there was no roost. My totals for the day were: Canada Goose 45 Gadwall 2 American Wigeon 2 Northern Pintail 34 Green-winged Teal 1 Great Blue Heron 1 Turkey Vulture 1 Red-shouldered Hawk 4 Red-tailed Hawk 2 American Kestrel 4 Killdeer 5 American Woodcock 1 Rock Pigeon 14 Eurasian Collared-Dove 1 Mourning Dove 33 Eastern Screech-Owl 4 Great Horned Owl 1 Belted Kingfisher 1 Red-headed Woodpecker 1 Red-bellied Woodpecker 17 Yellow-bellied Sapsucker 3 Downy Woodpecker 8 Hairy Woodpecker 5 Northern Flicker 8 Pileated Woodpecker 5 Eastern Phoebe 10 Loggerhead Shrike 1 Blue Jay 35 American Crow 77 Carolina Chickadee 16 Tufted Titmouse 30 White-breasted Nuthatch 13 Brown Creeper 3 Carolina Wren 35 Winter Wren 7 Golden-crowned Kinglet 11 Ruby-crowned Kinglet 1 Eastern Bluebird 76 Hermit Thrush 12 American Robin 1000000 (301 away from roost) Northern Mockingbird 13 Brown Thrasher 1 European Starling 5000 (591 away from roost) Cedar Waxwing 257 Yellow-rumped Warbler 31 Eastern Towhee 21 Field Sparrow 224 Fox Sparrow 3 Song Sparrow 72 Swamp Sparrow 44 White-throated Sparrow 210 Dark-eyed Junco 393 Northern Cardinal 59 Red-winged Blackbird 1000 (84 away from roost) Eastern Meadowlark 24 Rusty Blackbird 400 (all at roost) Common Grackle 5000 (100 away from roost) Brown-headed Cowbird 100 (all at roost) Purple Finch 9 House Finch 17 Pine Siskin 12 American Goldfinch 156 House Sparrow 22 For comparison, last year I covered the same area over 8 half-days (4 times as many hours afield), and came up with 67 species. Some interesting contrasts between last year and this: Species with higher totals this year than last, in spite of 1/4 the effort (other than the ducks already mentioned and the huge totals from the roost)): Eastern Screech Owl, Great Horned Owl, Red-headed Woodpecker, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Eastern Phoebe, Blue Jay, American Robin (away from roost), Cedar Waxwing, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Red-winged Blackbird (away from roost), Common Grackle (away from roost), American Goldfinch. Species with much lower totals this year, even allowing for reduced effort: Black Vulture (weather), Turkey Vulture (weather), Carolina Chickadee, Golden-crowned Kinglet, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Chipping Sparrow, White-crowned Sparrow. These patterns seem to be consistent with what has been generally noted this year, that acorn and berry feeders are doing better this year after a terrible year in 2008 (aftermath of the 2007 freeze). I had noticed a scarcity of chickadees and kinglets locally this winter; it seems to be at least a county-wide phenomenon. Bill Pulliam Hohenwald TN =================NOTES TO SUBSCRIBER===================== The TN-Bird Net requires you to SIGN YOUR MESSAGE with first and last name, CITY (TOWN) and state abbreviation. You are also required to list the COUNTY in which the birds you report were seen. The actual DATE OF OBSERVATION should appear in the first paragraph. _____________________________________________________________ To post to this mailing list, simply send email to: tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx _____________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, send email to: tn-bird-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field. ______________________________________________________________ TN-Bird Net is owned by the Tennessee Ornithological Society Neither the society(TOS) nor its moderator(s) endorse the views or opinions expressed by the members of this discussion group. Moderator: Wallace Coffey, Bristol, TN wallace@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ------------------------------ Assistant Moderator Andy Jones Cleveland, OH ------------------------------- Assistant Moderator Dave Worley Rosedale, VA __________________________________________________________ Visit the Tennessee Ornithological Society web site at http://www.tnbirds.org * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ARCHIVES TN-Bird Net Archives at //www.freelists.org/archives/tn-bird/ MAP RESOURCES Tenn.Counties Map at http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/states/tennessee3.gif Aerial photos to complement google maps http://local.live.com _____________________________________________________________