2022-2023 Christmas Bird Count Results

Barry Langdon-Lassagne — Aggregator

Introduction

Every December-January SCVAS sponsors several Christmas Bird Counts (CBCs), part of a citizen science project coordinated by the National Audubon Society. Organizations use data collected in this long-running wildlife census to assess the health of bird populations and to help guide conservation action. Read about how the data is used and about the histories of our counts. Also see our Highlights and tables for past Christmas Bird Counts. For information outside our area, visit Audubon Christmas Bird Count.

Each CBC has the primary goal of counting all individuals of each species of bird detected in a 15-mile-diameter circle on a single day. In the SCVAS counts, each of our four predefined count circles are divided into sectors by the count leader and teams are assigned to count birds in each sector. Counters with less experience are teamed with those more experienced. Even if beginning birders can't identify every bird, they provide important "extra eyes" in finding birds. A countdown dinner is held on the evening of the count, where groups share their results and tell tales of the day.

Latest Results

Below are the results from our four Christmas Bird Counts for this winter. Across our four count circles, 362 volunteers were able to tally 232,699 individual birds spanning 198 species.

View the 2022-2023 TABLE — an aggregation of the results from all four Christmas Bird Counts
(also see previous years’ results)

San Jose

Mike Azevedo

December 18th was a frosty morning. As last year, there was no countdown dinner held, but there is now a countdown video complete with photos of many of the rare birds seen, as well as birders, birds, animals and scenery enjoyed that day by the 86 participants. The video is available on the SCVAS YouTube channel at https://youtu.be/QP0PRAA-Ki4.

 Greater White-fronted Goose lived up to its emerging reputation as a common bird by showing up in five sectors. No longer a write-up bird, Greater White-fronted Geese seem to be showing up everywhere, 145 in total.

 A number of rare bird species, in fact, decided to show up in multiple sectors. Snow Goose was seen by Agnews Party 5 and in Alviso. You can check out Bill Walker’s photo of 4 Snow Geese on the countdown video. We saw both Cackling Goose (seen in Alviso and 31 of them in Evergreen sector!) and Eurasian Wigeon (Seen in Alviso and Calaveras).

 Blue Winged Teal was also found in Alviso, as was Black Turnstone and Lesser-Black-backed Gull. And Calaveras sector had a Common Loon, seen by San Francisco Water Department biologist Ben Dubek, who joined us this year to help with Calaveras Reservoir North.  

 Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker was seen in the Santa Clara/Sunnyvale sector by Sally Teeple’s party. Swallows had a good showing this year, despite all swallow species continuing to be write-up birds. Tree Swallow, Violet-green Swallow, Barn Swallow and Northern Rough-winged Swallow all made appearances in Alviso, with Tree Swallow and Violet-greens found at Calaveras sector and Tree Swallows also at Ed Levin (East Foothills Sector) and Evergreen Sector.

 Summer Tanager and Phainopepla also decided to make a mockery of their rare status by showing up in multiple places. Summer Tanagers were wonderfully photographed in both Alum Rock Sector and at the Carmelite Monastery in Santa Clara/Sunnyvale Sector. Phainopepla were seen by two different Calaveras parties, one of which sent in a magazine quality photo. All of these photos can be found in the Countdown video. Scaly-breasted Munia made an appearance at Alum Rock, Tropical Kingbird in Evergreen and Painted Redstart and Hammond’s Flycatcher at Agnews sector. Swamp Sparrow was seen by both Matthew Dodder and Steve Rottenborn in Alviso.

 Unexpected misses included Surf Scoter, Sanderling, Northern Pygmy-Owl, Prairie Falcon, and Burrowing Owl, starting a new trend of disappearing for the count. A check of the history of Burrowing Owl sightings for the SJ CBC finds that since 1950, they were seen every year with the exception of 1956, but then again in 2021 and now this year. We hope this doesn’t become a trend.

 But it isn’t all bad news. There were some birds that are often missed but we found them. For example, Wood Duck (two seen in Evergreen and one by Agnews Party 4), Ring-necked Pheasant, found by Matthew Dodder, and both Brown Pelicans and Short-eared Owls seen by Mike Rogers, all in Alviso sector. Horned Lark was missed last year but showed back up for David Hohmann at Alum Rock this year.

 So a nippy start to the day, but it ended well with 171 species being observed.

Palo Alto

Al Eisner

The Palo Alto CBC was held on Monday December 19 under dry and fairly calm conditions, with cloud cover in most places and a rather chilly start. A count-record 160 participants found a total of 169 species, a few more than our recent average.

The most extraordinary species on the count was the same as last year: the returning CURLEW SANDPIPER, found both years by Mike Rogers at the Palo Alto Baylands. This is only the second appearance of the species on our count and indeed on any California CBC. Also impressive and making its second appearance was the PLUMBEOUS VIREO, found by Gerry McChesney at Google in Mountain View. The location was only half a mile from where a wintering bird was seen on the 2019 count, perhaps suggesting that a single individual may have also wintered nearby over the intervening two years.

We also found two species new to the count, exotics which have become established locally, and are now on the state list - hence not really unexpected. First, a flock of 42 MITRED PARAKEETs was identified by Gena Zolotar at Las Palmas Park in Sunnyvale, a known location. Another 7 were identified by Naomi Goodman near San Francisquito Creek in Menlo Park; a party nearby in Palo Alto reported what were presumably the same 7 birds. Second, SCALY-BREASTED MUNIA has been spreading recently; some have been visiting a feeder in Palo Alto, where 6 were seen and photographed on count day.

Some other notable species: the count's second BLACK-HEADED GROSBEAK, a hatch-year male at the Geng Road ball field in Palo Alto; our third appearance of TROPICAL KINGBIRD, this one at the Moffett golf course (the stakeout at Geng Road did not sbow); our third TOWNSEND'S SOLITAIRE, at Monte Bello Open Space Preserve; the 2 BLACK OYSTERCATCHERs which have settled into pond SF2 (along the Dumbarton Bridge) during the past few years, fourth time on count; a YELLOW-BELLIED SAPSUCKER at Frenchman's Park on the Stanford campus; 3 LEWIS'S WOODPECKERs at Felt Lake (private); 4 BARN SWALLOWs over Charleston Slough; plus SNOW GOOSE, SNOWY PLOVER, RED KNOT, and LESSER YELLOWLEGS, and several interesting hybrid ducks.  GREATER WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE has become regular on the count, but a flock of 32 (seen in flight and at Mountain View Shoreline Park) represented a new high.

There were two exciting count-week rarities: 2 CASPIAN TERNs at SF2 two days before (same area as our one past count sighting); and a CASSIN'S KINGBIRD (a species not yet found on the count) at the Moffett Field Golf Course, associating with the Tropical the day after the count!

Six species which have shown up in least 2/3 of recent years were missed: Barrow's Goldeneye, Wilson's Snipe, Barn Owl, House Wren, Pine Siskin and Brown-headed Cowbird. Siskin numbers are highly variable year to year; with none of them, it was unsurprising that we did not find any of the less-regular winter finches. On the other side of the story, the count of BAND-TAILED PIGEONs (also highly variable year-to-year) smashed our previous record (1,695 birds in 2001), even allowing for some possible double-counting of flocks. HERMIT THRUSH showed a similarly-large increase. The number of AMERICAN CROWs fell back a bit from last year's record high. A more substantial drop in CANADA GOOSE numbers might or might not portend a trend.

Thanks to Ann Hepenstal, who organized the count effort (plus the hybrid countdown event), to our eight region coordinators, and to the many participants, for a successful day. And thanks to SCVAS for their support.

Calero-Morgan Hill

Rick Herder

84 counters reported 136 species on the 23rd Calero-Morgan Hill CBC on December 26. On land the acorn and berry food crops were abundant, but the count happened just before the big winter storms and water levels were low. We did not find many of the common water birds - no stilts or least sandpipers and fewer gulls than usual, especially the smaller species. However, record high counts indicate continuing growth of some species: Eurasian Collared-Dove, Anna’s Hummingbird, Hairy Woodpeckers. Some rare birds like Lewis’s and Pileated Woodpecker have now been reported for 3 years in a row. More swallows may be wintering here, they’ve been reported for several years. We also had count high numbers of Greater White-fronted Goose and White-throated Sparrow. Steve Rottenborn photographed the first count record of the Kumlien’s subspecies of the Iceland Gull. Hugh McDevitt reported the most shocking discovery: Chukar! But it was sitting on top of a car in the middle of suburbia, and domesticated birds don’t make the CBC list. Dry mild weather made for a nice day out for human counters - the heavy rain started that evening. The 2023 count will be on Sat., Dec. 30.

Mount Hamilton

Bob Hirt and Charles Coston

We had our count on January 2, 2023 and had rainy weather throughout the day. Most of the ponds were open but the water birds were mostly concentrated on the larger bodies of water. We had very little weather-related access problems since Hwy 130 was open and dry. The farm roads were passable with the right 4WD vehicle. However, Isabel Creek was raging and crossing was not safe.

 We did enjoy a complete count. Last year after the huge CSU fire of September of 2020 which devastated our count circle, we had a record low species count coming in at 80 species but this year we saw some real recovery finding 91 species. We found 5,761 individual birds for the day up from 4,708 the prior year. The highlight this year was raptors with 11 Golden Eagles, 12 Bald Eagles, 11 Ferruginous Hawks, 47 Red-tailed Hawks, 3 Merlin and a count first Peregrine Falcon. Thanks to Mike Rogers for analyzing the raptor data to avoid duplication. It was a good year for mergansers with 29 Hooded and 17 Common. California Quail have recovered but not Wrentit and California Thrasher. Again Wood Duck was missed as was Prairie Falcon.

Our target species of Lewis’ Woodpecker and Lawrence’s Goldfinch were low in number and found almost entirely on a private ranch. A special find was 2 Townsend’s Solitaires by the Mines Road team.

Thanks to our leaders again: Kirsten Holmquist, Mike Rogers, Leighton Nakata, Mike Azevedo, Charles Coston, and especially, Pete Dunten who hiked through the mud on the Mule trail and took over the Arnold and A to Z ranches in my absence. I am especially grateful to Charles Coston for leading the compilation and compiling the count. We had a record breaking 32 participants this year. Our deepest thanks to our dinner host Elinor Gates for leading the count at the stop, stocking her house feeders, and feeding the hungry bird counters.

More Information

Read about how the data are used and about the histories of our counts. Also see our Highlights and tables for past Christmas Bird Counts.

If you’re new to the Christmas Bird Count, the writeups from previous years can help you understand what the experience is like! Check out the writeups from previous years including pictures and tables of all birds observed. Here are all the recent writeups:

• 2021-22 CBC Writeups

• 2020-21 CBC Writeups

• 2019-20 CBC Writeups

• 2018-19 CBC Writeups

Banner photo: Chipping Sparrow, 2021 Calero-Morgan Hill CBC by Carter Gasiorowski