The 3rd Saturday Bird Outing on July 20 will be at Clearwater Park in Springfield…
Although the weather was not ideal, the 82nd ECBC held on Sunday Dec. 31 was a great success. The 190 Field Observers and 101 Home Counters saw 133 species of birds and 66,334 individual birds. Field observers spent 273 hours looking for birds while walking 192 miles, driving 444 miles and bicycling 9 miles.
Yes, I said 190 Field Observers! That is the highest number we have ever had on this CBC, breaking the old record by 26 birders! Combine that with the 101 Home Counters and the total number of observers also set a new record of 291 people, 27 over the old high. Each year I have tried to get more people to go on the ECBC because the more eyes we have out looking for birds, the more birds we will see. I also wanted more people to enjoy birdwatching so they would perhaps work to save habitat and the environment.
The number of species seen was about average for the past five years but the number of individual birds was low. We know the decreased visibility due to the heavy fog made finding birds difficult. The 2023 ECBC Summary article below by Vjera Thompson goes into more depth on the birds seen. I want to share an interesting tidbit. At the end of the day for most teams, we had not seen a Western Screech-Owl. Rich Hoyer who has been a Team Leader for several years but was out-of-the country for most of Count Day, was flying home and saw on e-Bird that we had not seen a Screech Owl. He had been hearing one in the Count Circle for much of December, so when his plane landed at 10:30 pm, he went to the area he had been hearing the owl, heard it and reported it to Vjera before midnight!
Marcia Maffei, Home Counter Coordinator, recruited 101 Home Counters this year. That is a high number considering we have only had over 100 Home Counters six times, all in the past eight years.
The ECBC is such a success because we have many active birders in the Eugene-Springfield area, and also because of the great efforts by the 26 Team Leaders. The Team Leaders organize their teams and guide them all day long while looking for birds.
For more, see the Christmas Bird Count page.
Related Posts
