Yesterday was a remarkable day in the history of the count. Below are some of the preliminary results.
We set many records: * Our species count was 102 on the day, beating the previous record of 99 set in 2013 o We also have two count week species so far * We had lots of high counts: o 7 Mute Swans (prev 2 in 2002) o 16401 Redhead (prev 13412 in 2001) o 250 Ring-necked Duck (prev 116 in 2013) o 501 Lesser Scaup (prev 330 in 2000) o 7 White-winged Scoter (prev 2 in 2014) o 47 Long-tailed Duck (prev 14 in 2009) o 272 Common Goldeneye (prev 126 in 2009) o 216 Common Merganser (prev 127 in 2009) o 21 Red-breasted Merganser (prev 19 in 1988) o 14 Bald Eagle (prev 9 in 2016) (This is probably an overcount and is likely to be revised) o 1514 Dark-eyed Junco (prev 1185 in 2016) o 9 White-crowned Sparrow (prev 8 in 1976) * We had three species never seen on the count before: o Black Vulture (3) o Tufted Duck o European Goldfinch The total count of individual birds was 40536, which is just above our 10-year average of 38328, and well short of the 2016 record of 59611. 122 people went out, and we had 12 feeder watchers. Unlucky misses include Ring-necked Pheasant, Merlin and Northern Shrike. Keep an eye out for these species in the next three days. These numbers may be amended as we double check the figures and as new observations trickle in. Most of the records are likely to stand. Thanks are due to everyone who contributed, especially the area leaders. -Paul -- Paul Anderson, VP of Engineering, GrammaTech, Inc. 531 Esty St., Ithaca, NY 14850 Tel: +1 607 273-7340 x118; http://www.grammatech.com -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --