It appears the recent heavy dump of snow had a big role to play in this year’s Christmas Bird Count in Burnaby.
The 10-year average for the annual census of winter birds is 62 species, but the Dec. 18 event recorded only 57 species, 15 fewer than last year.
“(It was) probably some of the worst weather we’ve ever counted in,” said George Clulow, an avid birder who’s been organizing the count since the 1980s. “Other thing that made a difference is that the lakes were mostly frozen, so a lot of birds move out because there just isn’t the water for them to do their usual feeding.”
Missing this year were the pine siskins, a small finch that normally has a count of 700, he noted.
“It’s probably food related. They’re a tiny bird, but they wander huge distances all over the continent, and they may have been pushed south by the poor weather. What’s more likely (is) the weather doesn’t bother them, and the food that they like is available, (but there’s) more food elsewhere than in our local area,” he said.
While the count was below average, some bird species had higher numbers than usual. The team of 10 bird watchers spotted 182 spotted towhees.
“Usually, we get between 60 and 70, so (it’s) a big increase. The previous highest count in the last 15 years was 103,” Clulow said. “I suspect it was more related to the weather, pushing them up where we could see and hear them.”
Another species that made more of an appearance thanks to Mother Nature was a robin-like bird called varied thrush. Fifteen of them were seen, marking the second highest count of that species. The fox sparrow (46) and the song sparrow (160) also had high numbers.
“These birds move into lower elevations when the snow fall is really heavy higher up,” Clulow explained.
Unlike last year, where three new or rare species were noted (the redhead duck, the pine grosbeak and Lincoln’s sparrow), the same can’t be said for 2016.
The birders did, however, spot three red-breasted sapsuckers. None have been recorded in the last decade, and “if you go way back” in the counting records, counters have never seen more than one at a time. They also saw one merlin, a mid-sized falcon, at Deer Lake.
For the first time since 2008, sightings of Anna’s hummingbird took a dip (six were tallied), again due to the snowy weather. In 2015, they were spotted in areas away from houses, like parks. But Clulow said this time, they were crowding around people’s feeders.
The Christmas Bird Count also noted 7,200 crows in the Still Creek corridor, which is on par with previous counts.
