COBirders, I realize this is a little dated but thought I would give a quick note on the final results of the Penrose CBC. First, thank you very much to all who came out and helped. Every group noted the lack of birds and the total individuals shows as over the last eight years we have averaged over 19,000 individuals while this year we were just over 9,000. That being said, where we lacked in individuals we made up in total species. We tied last years total of 117 which is only three off of our all-time high. Last year we had over 20,000 individuals though. So an extra thank you to the participants for working so hard to find all the different species you did.
Of note were waterfowl. Although we typically do fine on waterfowl this year we did outstanding. We had 5 species of geese for the first time ever and ROSS'S GOOSE (2) was new for the count and our only new for count species. We had four species of waterfowl that set new high counts: Wood Duck, American Wigeon, Northern Pintail and Hooded Merganser, well and of course Ross's Goose. We had 10 other species that either tied or set a new high count. Marsh Wren doubled the previous high count going from 8 to 16. Most years we struggle to get 2 or 3 of these little guys. On the other side of that, Rock Pigeon was really an all-time low. Technically the first 3 years of the count were lower but that is really do to total party hours. In the last eight years we have averaged almost 900 whereas this year we only managed 252, perfectly fine by me! But on the other hand, Eurasian Collared-Dove set an all-time high. After setting a national high last year with 19 Williamson's Sapsuckers we were unable to find any on count day this year. I had known about two just prior to count but neither were found on count day. We did have four YELLOW-BELLIED SAPSUCKERS, 2 adult males and 2 juveniles. Over the past eight years we have averaged about 6,400 European Starlings whereas this year we only could muster 964 which again is an all-time low if you do not count the first two years of the count. Here is a list of the "highlights:" Greater White-fronted Goose - 10 Snow Goose - 1 Ross's Goose - 2 Ruddy Duck - 2 (very tough to get on this count) Western Grebe - 1 (see Ruddy Duck comment) Merlin - 0 (the big miss) Sora - 2 (high count) White-winged Dove - 10 Yellow-bellied Sapsucker - 4 Black Phoebe - 1 Loggerhead Shrike - 1 (not super noteworthy but we have not had one for a while) Pacific Wren - 1 (private property with no access) Hermit Thrush - 1 Northern Mockingbird - 1 Rufous-crowned Sparrow - 1 Lincoln's Sparrow - 2 White-throated Sparrow - 1 Harris's Sparrow - 5 Northern Cardinal - 1 (female coming to a private feeder) Lesser Goldfinch - 10 ----- Mark Peterson Colorado Springs -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cobirds?hl=en.
