Skip to content

Christmas bird count set for Dec. 20

Good Birding

The Sunshine Coast Natural History Society will conduct its 36th annual Christmas bird count on Saturday, Dec. 20.

The 24th Pender Harbour count, organized by the Pender Harbour Wildlife Society, is on Wednesday, Dec. 17. I will report details from the two counts in my next column in January.

The first Christmas Bird Count was in 1900, when Frank Chapman organized 25 of his friends to spend a day in the field counting birds, in reaction to his abhorrence of the prevailing “sidehunt” where shooting parties went forth and shot any living thing, and the team with the most dead bodies at the end of the day was declared the winner.

The Christmas bird count in the U.S.A. is organized by the Audubon Society and in Canada by Bird Studies Canada. This year will be the 115th count, which is the longest running bird database in the world.

In 2013 2,408 counts were conducted across North America and an increasing number in Central and South America. More than 71,000 people participated in 2013, counting more than 66 million birds. The long-term database provides a trove of information concerning the populations of mid-winter birds across North America.

Each count takes place on one day during the Christmas period and is conducted within the same circle 24 km in diameter. The Sunshine Coast circle is centred in Roberts Creek and covers the area from Port Mellon to West Sechelt. Most years the Sunshine Coast count records a species total in the 90’s, with a highest ever total of 105 species in 2009.

Pender Harbour generally reports 75 to 85 species with a high of 87 in 1993.

Last year the Yanayacu count in Ecuador reported an unbelievable 531 species within their count circle, an indication of the breathtaking degree of biodiversity in the tropical world.      

Anna’s hummingbird first appeared in our area in the 1970s and is now a well-established year-round resident, thriving in all settled areas of the Sunshine Coast where there are gardens and hummingbird feeders.

I have been tracking the population of Anna’s on the Sunshine Coast, so if you have any of these birds at your feeder or garden please email me and I will include them in the count. Last year we recorded nearly 200 Anna’s. Also, please contact me if you see any unusual or unidentified birds at your feeder or elsewhere via email tony@whiskeyjacknaturetours.com or 604-885-5539.