Here's a summary of this year's Christmas Bird Count for Augusta (7.5 mile radius from the State House dome):
Twenty-nine of us covered our fifteen sections of the 55th Augusta Christmas Bird Count circle on Saturday, December 14th, covering 38 miles on foot and 414 miles by car. Our count-day total of 62 species was one shy of the record total in 2004, and we didn't even have much for winter irruptive birds this year (no Bohemian Waxwings, Evening Grosbeaks, Pine Grosbeaks, or Pine Siskins). We also had a count week Wood Duck.
We continue to get higher numbers of more southerly wintering species; with record high counts of 12 Carolina Wrens (second record high in two years), 3 Northern Flickers (tie), 20 Red-bellied Woodpeckers (previous record of 12), and 1 Turkey Vulture (2nd ever on count). There were high numbers of waterfowl with 53 American Black Ducks and record 150 Hooded Mergansers and 587 Mallards. We had our first Red-breasted Mergansers since 2011 (10 of them!) and the most since 1978. Interestingly, there were multiple years of double digit Red-breasted Mergansers in the 1970s.
We had a very low count of 5 Red-breasted Nuthatches (10-year average of 46) and low counts of 178 European Starlings and 87 Herring Gulls. The latter is likely related to our limited access at Hatch Hill landfill for the count.
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