2014 Delaware CBC: Warm Weather, Relaxed Birds

Overview

The Delaware Reservoir Christmas Bird Count was held on Sunday, December 14, 2014. While the birders welcomed such warm weather, the birds seemed too relaxed to show up: numbers seemed low for many common species.

Highlights and Rarities

First, the rarities: Ben Warner’s group found a Tundra Swan and a Merlin (one of several reported in the area this December). Perhaps Ben’s group’s best bird was a Hermit Thrush. There are increasing reports of this species in Ohio in winter. Bill Heck’s group found an American Coot and a Ring-necked Duck, both relatively rare for our area in winter. Dan Fink’s group had a Northern Shrike. Dan Bobb’s group had a Winter Wren. My group was happy to find a Yellow-belled Sapsucker (first winter bird) at the Liebert Co. property in the same place as another YBSA last year. I saw an adult at the Grady Hospital parking lot (in a pine) the day after the count. We had a large number of Belted Kingfishers, no doubt because all the water was available to them with our warm temperatures. We also had high numbers of all bark foraging birds (woodpeckers, WB nuthatches, Brown Creepers). As Dan Yaussy pointed out at the compiling supper, this may be the result of all the standing dead ash trees. We had a relatively high number of Carolina Wrens this year. Robins were scarce this year, and we had ZERO Cedar Waxwings. Ed Lux suggested that this might be the result of a poor winter fruit crop. We had very low numbers of sparrows but we did get 5 Eastern Towhees.

Results

The total species count was 63 with 10,988 individuals. Both of these numbers seem a bit low relative to the past few years, but actually they are in line with our “averages” over the 27 years of this count.

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