Williams Lake Field Naturalist held their 57th Annual Christmas Bird Count on Dec. 15, 2024.
Temperatures remained a little above zero at the lower elevations and with mostly cloudy conditions and Williams Lake 95 per cent open, conditions looked favourable for a good count.
However, freezing rain the day before had left the back roads with a layer of ice which made for treacherous walking.
At the end of the day, the 35 participants in the field had counted 3,475 birds of 65 different species This is the second highest species total, a little behind the 67 recorded last year.
The number of birds counted however was over 1,000 less than the 20 year average but was not unexpected by the field teams who remarked on the scarcity of birds.
Three new species were seen on count day to bring the combined number of species seen over the 57 years to 129. New birds seen this year were a lone tundra swan, a yellow-billed loon and two Virginia rails. The tundra swan is not entirely unexpected in winter, but the high-arctic breeding yellow-billed loon, which winters along the Pacific coast of Alaska and B.C. is seldom seen in the Cariboo Chilcotin region.
The Virginia rail, although not uncommon during the breeding season is not well adapted to spending winters in sub zero conditions and needs unfrozen wetland to survive. Fortunately for this pair, they found a small patch of spring-fed marsh in the lower river valley which stays open in all but the harshest of winters.
Other notable birds found on count day were a long-tailed duck, a common loon and a double-crested cormorant on Williams Lake; an Anna’s Hummingbird coming to a heated feeder on Eagleview Road - only the second on the count, a blue jay coming to a feeder in the Flett Road area (third count record) and a Pacific wren in the river valley.
Although there was generally a downward trend in bird numbers, it was encouraging to see that woodpecker numbers seem to be rebounding after several years of decreasing numbers Hairy and pileated woodpeckers in particular seem to be benefiting from fire-killed and diseased conifers.
Many thanks for the additional reports from feeder watchers whose contributions add significantly to the count.
Birds counted and how many of each species: three trumpeter swans, one tundra swan, 73 mallards, six ring-necked ducks, one greater scaup, five lesser scaup, one long-tailed duck, 15 buffleheads, 32 common goldeneyes, four barrow's goldeneyes, one hooded merganser, 11 common mergansers, two ruffed grouse, eight sharp-tailed grouse, five pied-billed grebes, one red-necked grebe, 633 rock pigeons, 10 Eurasian collared doves, one Anna's hummingbird, two Virginia rails, one common loon, one yellow-billed loon, one double-crested cormorant, two great blue herons, two golden eagles, one sharp-shinned hawk, 20 bald eagles, two red-tailed hawks, four northern pygmy-owls, two American three-toed woodpeckers, three black-backed woodpeckers, 16 downy woodpeckers, 32 hairy woodpeckers, 67 northern flickers, 23 pileated woodpeckers, one merlin, three northern shrikes, one blue jay, 17 Canada jays, 27 black-billed magpies, 475 American crows, 180 common ravens, 251 black-capped chickadees, 234 mountain chickadees, 215 bohemian waxwings, 162 red-breasted nuthatchs, 83 European starlings, one American dipper, one Pacific wren, 39 Townsend's solitaires, five American robins, 53 evening grosbeaks , 376 house sparrows, 10 pine grosbeaks, 133 house finches, two purple finches, 15 redpolls, 14 red crossbills, 50 white-winged crossbills, 55 American goldfinches, 42 dark-eyed juncos, one white-throated sparrows, 19 song sparrows, one spotted towhee, and 17 red-winged blackbirds.
There were a total of 65 species identified and 3,475 individual birds.
Additional count week species identified over the week of the count but not on the exact day were: red-breasted merganser, short-eared owl, great gray owl, Stellar's jay, and brown creeper.
