2024 Eugene Christmas Bird Count

The 2024 Eugene Christmas Bird Count (ECBC) is on Sunday, December 29. This will be our 83rd Christmas Bird Count! This date is our regular day within the normal three-week Count Period. Guidelines for social distancing will be up to the Team Leaders and each team member. Please be respectful of other’s safety concerns.

I’m happy to announce that the Countdown event will return after a four-year absence! It won’t be the wildly popular Chili Feed we have had for a few decades, but it will still be a nice way to gather after being out all day observing birds. During the Countdown, teams share their Count lists, coming up with the total number of species seen or heard.

This year we will meet at Putters Pizza, 1159 Highway 99 North in Eugene. Doors will open at 4 pm; pizza service will begin about 4:30. Our traditional Countdown will take place around 5:30. Putters does not have a salad bar, and you will need to purchase your own beverage there. You can also bring in a water bottle. LCAS will have a nice dessert for everyone. Only participants who were on one of the Area Field Teams are invited. Unfortunately, we don’t have adequate space for the Home Counters.

Our 27 Teams will be looking for birds in their designated areas within the 15-mile diameter Count Circle. Each Team Leader will manage their team according to what works best for them. If you were on a team last year, the Team Leader should be contacting you with information for this year. If you have not heard from your Team Leader by mid-December, contact them or Dick Lamster at maeveanddick@q.com or 541.343.8664. Other birders wanting to join the Count this year can also contact Dick.

If you cannot participate on an ECBC team in the field this year, consider being an ECBC Home Counter. From the comfort of your own home, you can record the birds you see at your feeder, in your yard, or overhead. Your sightings will also be included in the report to the National Audubon Society. To participate as a Home Counter, please read the article by Marcia Maffei, 2024 ECBC Home Counter Coordinator, on page 6 in the December Quail newsletter. You can also contact Marcia at: birds2count@gmail.com or call her cell phone number: 541.501.1280.

Although the weather was not ideal last year, the 2023 ECBC was still a great success. We struggled to see birds through the heavy fog for most of the day. However, the rain held off and the fog lifted in some areas of our Count Circle in the afternoon, and we did see 133 species and 66,334 individual birds. The 190 field observers were the most we’ve ever had. Combined with the 101 Home Counters, the total of 291 participants was also a new high for our Count. Seven more species were seen during Count Week. The number of individual birds we identified was a little below the average for the past several years.

You can view results of past ECBCs, as well as all the other CBCs in North America, at christmasbirdcount.org. Our count code is OREU.

The results of the 2023 CBC have not yet been published by the National Audubon Society, but for the 2022 CBC, we had the Count with the 10th most participants of all the 2,625 CBCs in North America, Latin America, and some South Pacific Islands. That’s a mighty big number for little Eugene! We have a great Count—a Count to be proud of!

We hope you can join us for this year’s ECBC. We look forward to sharing this fun and important endeavor with you on Sunday, December 29, 2024.

Stay tuned here and/or contact Dick Lamster at 541-343-8664 for more info.