The 33rd Upper Nestucca CBC--the only Oregon CBC centered on the Coast Range--
was originally scheduled for December 15 but was postponed due to heavy snow in
the count circle. We ended up running it yesterday, January 5, on the last day
of the official CBC season. Due to the need to reschedule, and road conditions
in the area, several of our volunteers who were planning on doing the count
were unable to attend yesterday, and those who did participate had large areas
of the count circle inaccessible due to snow and ice and downed trees.
We had eleven enthusiastic participants in seven teams. We ended up tallying
44 species, which is perfectly respectable for the Coast Range when we have a
reduced participant list. But it ties the lowest count total since we revived
this count circle in 2004 (the high was 59 in December, 2011). Weather in the
count circle was sunny all day but bitter cold. Temperatures ranged from the
mid teens to around 30 degrees. We didn't add any new species to the count list
this year, but somewhat surprisingly we did set three new high counts for
individual species:Bald Eagle-- 6 (old record 4)Downy Woodpecker-- 11 (old
record 10)Hermit Thrush-- 38 (old record 33)
Some other good birds include:Wood Duck--2 found by Chris Chappell and Kay and
Mike Fagan. Only the third record for this count.Mountain Quail--9 seen by
Craig Nies. Found on 11 previous counts.Northern Pygmy-Owl--the 5 we tallied
ties the count record. Four of these were found by the team of Chappell Fagan
and Fagan.
American Dippers were present in good numbers. I found nine of them in a
seven-mile stretch of the Nestucca River, which is running low and clear for
this time of year. Many of them were in full song.
Pam Johnston and Linda Phelan Thompson tallied one Bobcat.
Some of the misses, with the number of previous years out of 32 they've been
found on this count:Ruffed Grouse (25)--The most painful miss. I think we'll
have it as a count-week bird.Pine Siskin (24)--Not a surprise this yearBewick's
Wren (23)--There's not a lot of habitat for this species in the
mostly-coniferous Coast Range, but we usually turn up a few.Hutton's Vireo
(21)Pileated Woodpecker (15)Cooper's Hawk (15)Evening Grosbeak
(15)Sharp-shinned Hawk (13)
In keeping with the trend on other Oregon counts, Varied Thrush were in low
numbers. They're usually pretty thick on this count. We managed a total of 12.
Here's a complete list of the birds we found yesterday:
Great Blue Heron 1Wood Duck 2Mallard 2Hooded Merganser 6Bald Eagle 6
(high count)Red-tailed Hawk 7American Kestrel 3Mountain Quail 9Killdeer
5Glaucous-winged Gull 1Eurasian Collared Dove 7Western Screech-Owl
2Northern Pygmy-Owl 5 (ties high count)Belted Kingfisher 1Red-breasted
Sapsucker 3Downy Woodpecker 11 (high count)Hairy Woodpecker 6Northern
Flicker 8Gray Jay 26Steller's Jay 51Western Scrub-Jay 3American Crow
70Common Raven 34Black-capped Chickadee 2Chestnut-backed Chickadee
74Bushtit 15Red-breasted Nuthatch 3Brown Creeper 2Pacific Wren
132American Dipper 11Golden-crowned Kinglet 135Ruby-crowned Kinglet
6Hermit Thrush 36 (high count)American Robin 41Varied Thrush 12European
Starling 66Spotted Towhee 16Lincoln's Sparrow 1Fox Sparrow 20Song
Sparrow 46Golden-crowned Sparrow 8Dark-eyed "Oregon" Junco 57Red
Crossbill 12House Sparrow 5
Many thanks to all who participated on the count this year!
Don Albrightdonalbright@xxxxxxxxxxxx
