The data for all of the Christmas Counts conducted all over North America are now available online through the National Audubon Society and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.  Our local count is called the “Monticello, NY” count.  If you want to see the information we have contributed over the years, including the kinds of birds and the numbers found, or if you'd like to learn more about the Christmas Bird Count, check out National Audubon's CBC website.

Sullivan County Audubon’s annual Christmas Bird Count was held on December 27th, 2008.  This was National Audubon’s 109th count, and it was the 59th year Sullivan County Audubon has participated.   Each year participants divide into groups (or parties) to count all birds within pre-designated regions in a 15-mile diameter count circle centered along the Neversink River south of Bridgeville.  The circle includes Monticello, the Bahsakill wetland, parts of the Rio & Mongauk Reservoirs as well as Kiameshia Lake.  A small portion of Orange County is included near Cuddebackville. 

As was the case last year the weather was not optimal, with some light rain off and on throughout the morning and ice-crusted snow that limited access to some areas.  In spite of the conditions we recorded 61 species, which was a new record for our count!  This year we had the participants split into one more group than we’ve ever had in the past (8) and it seems to have paid off. 

Among the highlights were two species found by Valerie Freer’s team: Palm Warbler and Savannah Sparrow.  Neither of these had previously been seen on our count.  But considering their winter ranges they are not totally unexpected, especially in light of the patterns of distributional change we are detecting among other similar species. Both of these species are short-distance migrants that normally overwinter not too far to the south, and in a recent analysis of 40-years of Christmas Bird Counts we found that two thirds of over 300 species included in our analysis were shifting their winter ranges significantly to the north.  Based on consideration of climate data it appears that warming winter temperatures is at least partially responsible for some of the range shifts.  The northern expansion of many species such as Red-billed Woodpecker and Carolina Wren have been well known to us, but it appears the phenomena is more widespread.  We can expect to find more species from the south on our CBCs in the future.

Thanks again to Ruth Shursky for hosting the post-count potluck and countdown.