Saturday was the last day of the 108th Annual Christmas Bird Count. For those of you not familiar with the CBC (the Citizen Science event, not the public broadcaster), it has been held annually during the Christmas season for the last, well the last 108 years. Essentially teams of birders descend on circles with radii of 15 kilometres and attempt to count every bird and every species of bird within that circle.
It was originally conceived by the Audubon Society as a counterpoint to the annual Christmas Team Hunts which were held back then, when teams of hunters would head out and try see who could shoot the most birds. It has since grown to one of the largest citizen science projects in the world today. The data collected is used map population trends for bird species in North America. Last year some 70 Million birds were counted by 58,000 volunteers. Wait, they are more than volunteers as they pay five dollars each for the opportunity to take part.
The timing of the event, the 14th of December to the 5th of January, means it comes at a very unfriendly time for High Arctic CBCs. It is after all, our darkest time of the year, and the time of the year when we can expect hardly any species at all. According to this article in Birding Magazine, (pdf), no CBC north of 70 degrees North has ever recorded more than one species, Ravens (Corvus corax) of course. There have been High Arctic CBC’s held in Resolute Bay, Pond Inlet, Nanisivik and Prudhoe Bay & North Star Island Alaska, and none has ever reported a species other than Ravens.
The Ravens didn’t disappoint during this CBC either. I hold the CBC (I’m the compiler and so far the sole participant) on the last day of the CBC period, to maximize the amount of light we would have to use. Likewise the count period only runs for a couple of hours, from 11:00am to 1:00pm. I managed to tally 111 Ravens during the count. While about 40% were found scattered through out town, the majority were found at the dump and at a dog team that had recently been fed, two spots that never fail to disappoint Raven counters.
But as much as I love Ravens the highlight of the count was being able to double the amount of species ever found on a High Arctic CBC to two. I manged to find two Rock Ptarmigan (Lagopus mutus) out past the liquor sign. The count is still unofficial though as Rock Ptarmigan are flagged as "unusual species" for this area, although in fact they are the common ptarmigan for the North Baffin, it would be much more unusual to find Willow Ptarmigan (Lagopus lagopus) here but they are not flagged. I’m pretty confident of the identity though, one of the birds displayed a classic field mark (the two species are difficult to tell apart in winter plumage). So, I’m pretty confident that the Arctic Bay CBC will have been the only one to have doubled it’s species count this year, although it will be pretty challenging to repeat that feat next year. Hmm… maybe Climate Change will have us ice free next year, that would do it.
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3 responses
Congratulations on doubling your species total.
Clare, I’m so excited for your second species! I was looking forward to seeing your report. What could a possible third species be?
Thanks John and Patrick. I think at this rate of growth we’ll see every ABA species by CBC 117, and a whole bunch of unheard of rarities 😉
There are still some possible although unlikely winter species. Gyrfalcon, Snowy Owl, Redpoll and several open water species. It is very unlikely that the list will grow beyond two species though.