Statewide Birding Report
Last weekend marked the 11th annual Great Backyard Bird Count sponsored by National Audubon and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Wisconsinites reported 97,609 individuals of 112 species across the state on over 1900 checklists. This is the same number of species as 2007 but 20,000 less individuals, which was expected due to high snow cover and cold temperatures. However; participation increased from 2007 by 500 checklists. The 10 most abundant species in Wisconsin were the dark-eyed junco, American goldfinch, mourning dove, black-capped chickadee, hose sparrow, northern cardinal, mallard, house finch, American crow and blue jay. The lack of open water and high snow amounts resulted in big differences in the abundances of some waterfowl. In 2007 over 20,000 Canada geese were reported compared to only 2,000 in 2008. Blue Jays, common redpolls and pine grosbeaks and bohemian waxwings increased in 2008 and purple finch, white-winged crossbill, cedar waxwings and robins decreased from last year. Rare birds spotted included barrow's goldeneye, surf scoter, white-winged scoter, golden eagle, snowy owl, boreal chickadee, Townsend’s solitaire, brown thrasher, and hoary redpoll. There's still time to enter your checklists from this date at the Great Backyard Bird Count website
http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/ or consider entering daily observations at eBird (
www.ebird.org/WI).
