2020-2021 Christmas Bird Count Results

Barry Langdon-Lassagne — Aggregator

Here are the results from the four Christmas Bird Counts for this winter. Despite COVID-19 restrictions and extensive wildfire damage, hundreds of volunteers were able to tally 192,503 individual birds spanning 192 species.

View the 2020-2021 TABLE (also see previous years’ results)

San Jose Count Circle

Mike Azevedo — Compiler

On Sunday, December 20, 2020, the our count was held, complete with COVID-19 precautions and dodging burn zones. That's right, many of our best birding spots were burnt to a crisp during last year's big lightning fires. Calaveras Reservoir in particular was surrounded by flames. Special restrictions for the count made life difficult on our sector leaders, trying to fill out their sectors with experienced birders but with stringent guidelines. Amazingly, we pulled it off! We saw 173 bird species, comparable to a normal year.

The normally shy "a bird here, a bird there" Cackling Goose showed up in huge numbers. 464 of them were seen in several flocks, along with 77 White Fronted Geese and 2 Snow Geese, all seen in Alviso. Two Snow Geese were also seen at Overfelt Gardens by Richard Page. Also seen in Alviso were Blue-Winged Teal, Eurasian Wigeon, Barrow's Goldeneye, Common Loon and Ruff. Ferruginous Hawk and Swamp Sparrow were also seen. A second Ferruginous Hawk was seen in a couple of places at Calaveras Reservoir where Phainopepla and Northern Rough-winged Swallow were also found.

The East Foothills sector around Ed Levin Park had some fun with both a Tropical Kingbird and Willow Flycatcher. And Western Tanager was seen at Alum Rock Park. I really have to applaud all of our leaders for struggling through this challenging year and coming through for us. We do have leaders retiring after this year so if you are at all interested, please let us know.

Palo Alto Count Circle

Al Eisner — Compiler

The Palo Alto CBC on December 21, 2020 came off without a hitch, despite COVID-19 restrictions. A few places were closed, some were overcrowded, and NWR access was by foot or bicycle only. But the weather was generally good, counters enthusiastic, and the virtual countdown a success.

We followed SCVAS requirements with respect to the pandemic.  While this implied few if any opportunities for beginners to participate, the total number of participants was close to that in the past few years.  Several of our eight regions had to deal with this by splitting parties into several teams, each counting their own subset of a party's area and spending less time.  But our region coordinators and party leaders did an excellent job of handling the challenges.

We wound up with a total of 171 species, only a few less than our count record. One species was new to the count: two (!) stake-out Tropical Kingbirds in Palo Alto, one along Geng Road and one near Matadero Creek. (The other Geng Road rarity, Summer Tanager, was not seen on count day, but there are count-week reports.) The Brant near Mountain View Shoreline Lake was a second count occurrence, as was the Black Oystercatcher at pond SF2 by the Dumbarton Bridge. (One or two have been hanging around there for close to two years.) A Grassshopper Sparrow at Byxbee Park in Palo Alto was the third for the count, as was the male Phainopepla near the Stanford dish (a female was found with it days after the count). A Rock Wren near Byxbee Park was a count fifth. Other good rarities were 2 Ross's Geese (with 13 Snow Geese in flight near the Stevens Creek delta), a Chipping Sparrow (Terman Park in Palo Alto) and a few Snowy Plovers (Crittenden). Often-missed shorebirds included Ruddy Turnstone, Red Knot and Lesser Yellowlegs, while Blue- winged Teal (getting less regular) was also found. So, overall, a nice "haul" of rarities.

But there were also misses of regular or fairly regular species: Greater White-fronted Goose, Red-breasted Merganser, Brown Pelican, Red-breasted Nuthatch, and Brown-headed Cowbird. Perhaps also worth noting: no unusual warblers were reported. But Pine Siskins were "all over the place"; the total of 1,110 was the highest in count history (third highest after normalizing by party hours, with 1987 taking the honors). Yet there were no high numbers among other irruptive species; indeed, American Robin and Purple Finch totals were lower than in most recent years.

Fifteen species were in record high numbers, several by quite substantial margins: White-Breasted Nuthatch (which has climbed over the past few years), Hairy Woodpecker (likewise, while Downy Woodpecker has been stable or even declining, with much lower numbers), Acorn Woodpecker, and especially American Crow. On the other hand, Eurasian Collared-Dove has decreased steeply after reaching a peak two years earlier; it is too early to say if this represents a significant trend. Lastly, the Redhead explosion locally has continued, with this year's new high surpassing Canvasback numbers for the first time on the Palo Alto CBC.

Thanks are due to our hard-working Region coordinators, to all of our participants, and to Carolyn Knight of SCVAS for setting up the virtual countdown.

Mount Hamilton Count Circle

Bob Hirt — Compiler

The Mount Hamilton CBC scheduled for January 3, 2021 was cancelled for only the second time since its inception in 1979. With the massive destruction of habitat in the Count Circle due to the SCU Lightning Complex fires, the COVID-19 Santa Clara County's Stay-at-Home orders (except for Essential Travel), and the normal risks of driving on tortuous mountain roads (compounded by the threat of rain in the weather forecast); prudence dictated cancelation. So sorry, but we'll be back next year.

The only count done on Mount Hamilton this year was done by Elinor Gates at a two-hour feeder watch. Elinor lives on Mount Hamilton and works as Senior Astronomer at Lick Observatory in addition to being the Hostess for our CBC Compilation Dinner each year.

Calero-Morgan Hill Count Circle

Rick Herder — Compiler

The Calero-Morgan Hill Christmas Count held its 22nd count on Dec. 26. 2020, on a beautiful sunny day. 82 observers reported 144 species. Two major challenges this year were the COVID restrictions, which lowered the number of observers, and the loss of access to Anderson Reservoir and part of Anderson Lake County Park due to a major dam reconstruction project.

Observations of ducks and shorebirds were quite low, but a total of 144 reported species was in line with recent counts. And high counts were reported for a remarkable number of species including Band-tailed Pigeon, Hairy Woodpecker, Say’s Phoebe, Oak Titmouse, White-breasted Nuthatch, Marsh Wren, Western Bluebird, California Thrasher, White- crowned Sparrow, Song Sparrow, and Pine Siskin.

Observers reported 2 species never before recorded on the count. Steve and Ozzie Altus reported a Pileated Woodpecker at Uvas Canyon County Park and Bill Bousman found a Green- tailed Towhee at Santa Teresa County Park that was later seen by many observers. Mike Mammoser found Northern Rough-winged, Tree, and Violet-Green Swallows. Thanks to all the sector leaders who put together great s•ocially distant teams in spite of the difficult circumstances.

See also Past Christmas Bird Count Results.