So yeah; last Saturday was our local Christmas bird count, which I’ve been organizing for the past few years. It’s always a lot of fun, but also exhausting. Afterwards there’s some work to get everything in order, chasing down rarity documentation, angsting over the species we missed.
This year’s angst is provided by Brown-headed Cowbird, a species that is pretty much always present in our circle but is easy to overlook. And… we overlooked it. *sigh*
I went out this morning, on count day + 3, the last day of “count week” during which we can record species that were seen during the 7 days bracketing the count day but not on the day itself. They’re like a consolation prize. They don’t add to our bragging-rights total, but we can enter them in the form as “cw” birds.
I saw Brown-headed Cowbirds in two different places, right where they were supposed to be. It’s my fault we didn’t get them; I could have picked them up myself in the afternoon, and there were plenty of other birders out batting clean-up. I just failed to recognize that the species was missing and didn’t ask anyone to focus on it.
Next year.
Our species count is probably going to end up at 152, which is pretty much right in the middle of our historical performance. More details, including a link to the eBird trip report with all the checklists, are available on the Carpinteria Birdwatchers website at 2021 Carpinteria CBC Wrap-up.
