[Tweeters] Seattle Christmas Bird Count 18 Dec 2022 - summary of results

[Matt Bartels]

2022 Seattle Christmas Bird Count
18 December 2022
 
128 species tallied (count day + count week)
Count day: 117 species
Count week: 11 additional species
Individual birds: 49,733 [47,439 in-field, 2294 at feeders]
Observers: 319 [230 in field + 89 feeder watchers]

 
Overview
2022 marked the first more ‘normal’ CBC for Seattle, after 2020 was feeder-watch only, and 2021 was held with limited participation.
 
The 2022 Seattle CBC was held on December 18, 2022. The weather was in the 30s & 40s, cloudy with some snow in the air in the afternoon. The winds prevented our boat crew from getting out on the water and as a result they conducted their survey portion via ferry. Results were strong, but overall a bit lower than usual.  Overall, with 319 participants including 89 at feeders and 230 in the field, we had the highest participation in our history, breaking 300 for the first time ever.

Highlights
While we added no new species to the CBC history this year, highlight birds for the count included Black Oystercatcher [2], Ancient Murrelet [count week], Swamp Sparrow [1], Townsend’s Solitaire [3] and Western Tanager [count week].

Notable misses
Eleven species were only picked up as count week birds: Redhead, Mourning Dove, Wilson’s Snipe, Ancient Murrelet, Bonaparte’s Gull, Herring Gull, Great Egret, Great Horned Owl, American Pipit, Savannah Sparrow and Western Tanager. In addition, notable misses included: Tundra Swan, Long-tailed Duck, Eurasian Collared-Dove, Ring-necked Pheasant, Sanderling, Dunlin, Marbled Murrelet, Western Screech-Owl and Evening Grosbeak.

Record high counts
For the modern period (1972-present), high counts were recorded for eight species. We set or tied record highs for: Cackling Goose [703], Black Oystercatcher [2], Bald Eagle [163], Red-tailed Hawk [55], Peregrine Falcon [17], Townsend’s Solitaire [3], Swamp Sparrow [1], and White-throated Sparrow [8].

Trends
It’s always tough to be selective with the results to report, but here’s how a few groups fared.
[numbers in brackets indicate the total number seen and the percentage as a ratio of the 10-year average on the count (excluding 2020), species with a record-high count noted with an *]. For example, a note of “[100, 50%]” would indicate that 100 individuals were seen, and that this is just 50% of the norm for the past 10 years (the average # seen from 2011-2021 has been 200).


Ducks & geese
Goose numbers were mixed, with Snow Goose [53, 68%], Greater White-fronted Goose [1, 11%] and especially Brant [7, 7%] coming in low, but Cackling goose [703*, 535%] and Canada Goose [1188, 112%] coming in high. Dabbling ducks, in general, came in lower than their 10-year average, with a couple exceptions. For example: Northern Shoveler [115, 63%], Eurasian Wigeon [7, 66%], American Wigeon [2208, 90%], and Northern Pintail [8, 11%] were low, but with Gadwall [651, 115%] and Mallard [1556, 118%] were a bit higher than the 10-year average. The diving duck story was very mixed. Coming in higher than usual were: Canvasback [231, 155%], Ring-necked Duck [599, 115%], Surf Scoter [827, 112%], Black Scoter [23, 155%] and Hooded Merganser [118, 159%]. Significantly lower than usual counts came for Greater Scaup [22, 9%], Lesser Scaup [67, 22%], Harlequin Duck [19, 35%], White-winged Scoter [1, 13%] and Ruddy Duck [3, 28%].


Grebes & hummingbirds
Grebe numbers were by and large lower than normal this year, with only Pied-billed Grebe [212, 104%] found in higher-than-average numbers. On the other extreme, largely driven by the inability of the boat crew to get out this year, Western Grebe [87, 15%] were well below the recent numbers. In fact, this is the first time since 1952 that we’ve recorded under 100 Western Grebes on the Seattle CBC. Anna’s Hummingbird [370, 74%] were present in low, but still decent numbers.

 
Shorebirds & Alcids
Two Black Oystercatchers from the Kitsap crew across the Sound were found for only the 2nd time ever on our CBC. Killdeer [86, 206%] numbers were up, as were Black Turnstones [93, 178%]. On the other hand, Surfbirds [5, 7%] hid from us this year, and the only other shorebirds were Spotted Sandpiper [1, 26%] and count-week Wilson’s Snipe [vs the 10-year norm of 16].  On the alcid front, again likely impacted by not being safe to put the boat crew on the water this year, our numbers were low across the board: Common Murre [6, 8%], Pigeon Guillemot [29, 54%] and Rhinoceros Auklet [33, 54%] totals were all well below average, and we totally missed Marbled Murrelet and had Ancient Murrelet only as a count-week bird.


Raptors & owls
Raptors appeared in mixed numbers. On the upside, we recorded record high counts for Bald Eagle [163, 172%], Red-tailed Hawk [55, 147%] and Peregrine Falcon [17,191%]. On the other hand, accipiter numbers [Sharp-shinned Hawk [4, 53%]. Cooper’s Hawk [19, 79%]] were lower than usual as was Merlin [8, 71%]. The 10 owls were found on count day was lower than usual: Barn Owl [1, 30%] , Barred Owl [8, 87%], and Northern Saw-whet Owl [1, 38%]. We added a count-week Great horned Owl but continued to locate zero Western Screech-owls as has been the case since 2018.

 
Passerines
Corvids numbers were present in pretty average numbers, all told: Steller’s Jay [194, 101%], California Scrub-Jay [21, 176%], American Crow [5598, 87%], and Common Raven [10, 119%].


Numbers for the ‘little ones,’ from Chickadees to Wrens:  Chestnut-backed Chickadee [409, 105%] and Red-breasted Nuthatch [209, 134%] showed up well, but Black-capped Chickadee [1541, 90%], Bushtit [729, 74%] and Brown Creeper [63, 63%] were a bit lower than normal. Lower still, Ruby-crowned Kinglet [157, 43%] had their lowest total in 30 years.  Likewise, we didn’t find wrens in normal numbers: Bewick’s Wren [201, 71%, lowest in 17 years], Pacific Wren [109, 53%, lowest in 13 years], and Marsh Wren [5, 51%, lowest in 10 years].


Thrush numbers were strong overall. In addition to our 3 Townsend’s Solitaires, we also saw higher than usual Hermit Thrush [15, 115%], American Robin [2854, 103%] and Varied Thrush [212, 170%] numbers.


Finches
It was not surprising to have low finch numbers given the winter’s poor finch showing overall in the state. Although historically low, perhaps most surprising was that we did record Red Crossbill [2, 2%] and Pine Siskin [48, 4%] at all. House Finch [645, 84%], Purple Finch [15, 65%] and American Goldfinch [460, 88%] numbers were a bit low, but not by too much.


Sparrows & Warblers
 The Kitsap crew of the CBC again came through, giving us our first Swamp Sparrow since 2005. We also set a record high count for White-throated Sparrow [8, 229%]. Beyond those two, only 1 other sparrow species, Dark-eyed Junco [2175, 128%] came in above the recent averages. On the Warbler front, we had three species: Orange-crowned Warbler [3, 50%], Yellow-rumped Warbler [354, 152%] and Townsend’s Warbler [11, 53%].

 
Thanks to all the participants who contributed to this year’s count.

A more complete report, with totals for each species, will appear on the Seattle Audubon website before long.

Matt Bartels
Compiler, Seattle CBC

 
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