Birder’s Notebook: Nome’s 47th Annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count
LONG TIME BIRD COUNTER (photo top right)— Charlie Lean checking the open water by Moonlight Springs for dippers. Charlie has been volunteering on the Christmas Bird Count since the 1990s. He said he “started out being the hunter that occasionally saw a strange tweety bird.” While Charlie was working as a fisheries biologist for Fish and Game, a carcass of a turkey vulture that had died of hypothermia at Fort Davis was turned over to him. That unprecedented bird put Charlie in contact with an enthusiastic group of birders in Nome at the time. Christmas Count co-coordinators Lana Harris and Karen Fagerstrom persuaded Charlie to join the next count, and he’s been a regular ever since. Charlie’s most memorable count was in 2000 when he found a rare Kittlitz’s murrelet in an offshore lead in the count area where he had been crabbing.
For nearly 50 years now, on one of the shortest days of the year, Nome’s bird enthusiasts have ventured out in all kinds of weather to document the few hardy bird species that spend the winter here.
Nome’s volunteers contribute to a nationwide effort to census birds across the entire country during Audubon’s annual Christmas Bird Count. The project, which began over 100 years ago, has grown into the world’s longest-running, largest-scale wildlife census. It is an entirely volunteer undertaking fueled by ordinary people with an interest in birds.
When you plan an outdoor event near the winter solstice in Nome, you hold your breath and hope for the best––and this year we got it.
Sandwiched between heavy rains with icing and days of hellacious winds, count day was ideal for people and birds alike––partly cloudy, light winds, temperatures in the twenties with a beautiful backdrop of pastel colors on the southern horizon.
The night before, a north wind that conveniently died by morning opened up leads in the sea ice close to shore, providing an opportunity to find a few of the seabird species that overwinter along the ice edge in the Bering Sea.
During the short and pleasant daylight hours of December 17, 14 observers fanned out with spotting scopes and binoculars over Nome’s count area; on the roads, by snowmachine, on skis, on foot, and some watched feeders and yards from home.
Our combined efforts found 11 species during this year’s Christmas Bird Count:
Spectacled eider – 1
Common eider – 1
Willow ptarmigan – 100
Rock ptarmigan – 12
Glaucous gull – 1
Rock pigeon – 40
Northern shrike – 2
Common raven – 190 Black-capped chickadee – 4 Snow bunting – 7
Pine grosbeak – 1
Four additional species were seen during “count week,” which includes the three days before and after count day:
King eider – 1
American dipper – 3
Red-tailed hawk – 1
McKay’s bunting – 2
A notable absence this year was McKay’s buntings, which have been found on more counts than any species except for the common raven. This year they were absent on count day and only two were seen during count week. Snow buntings were also relatively few in number. This is in keeping with my observations of fewer and smaller flocks of buntings so far this winter. McKay’s buntings usually outnumber snow buntings in Nome in winter, but the opposite seems to be the case this year.
The high-water event following typhoon Merbok buried extensive expanses of beach grass in coastal areas in the Nome area, which likely reduced or eliminated beach grass seeds, an important winter food source for these birds. Hopefully they have found better wintering grounds elsewhere.
Common raven numbers are down significantly from last year’s count of 350 ravens to 190 this year. All fall, there were noticeably fewer ravens at the dump and in town. A previous drop in numbers was associated with changes in trash management practices, but no such changes appear to have occurred recently.
It was a surprise to find a flock of rock ptarmigan along the Kougarok Road eating gravel and willow buds in the habitat where willow ptarmigan are usually found. However, normal rock ptarmigan habitat high on the hills is covered in very thick ice, likely driving them down.
Usually, a gyrfalcon is seen during the count, but for unknown reasons they have been scarce this fall and winter given the large number of ptarmigan present.
Northern shrikes made a strong showing this year. Last summer and fall, voles and shrews were abundant. They are still making appearances above the icy crust, providing these predatory songbirds with plentiful prey.
Prior to about 2015, seabirds were only seen on the count when observers traveled to offshore leads. In recent years, late freeze ups have often allowed seabirds to be spotted from shore. The eider species and glaucous gull are expected species that winter along the ice edge in the Bering Sea. Long-tailed ducks and black guillemots also winter in the ice and have been seen occasionally during recent counts, but not this year.
American dippers are probably always present in the Nome count area, but it can be hard to find them on a given day since they move frequently between open holes in the creeks and rivers.
Black-capped chickadees and pine grosbeaks are among the few species that sometimes spill from the spruce forests to the east of Nome to winter in the Nome area. Both species were found in small numbers on this year’s count.
A red-tailed hawk, which is a very unusual bird for Nome, was seen multiple times during count week and before. That is another story and will be the subject of my next article.
For those of us interested in birds, being part of the Christmas count is a satisfying way to contribute to the task of tracking the abundance and distribution of birds on a scale that professional scientists could not accomplish alone. At a time when many factors threaten the future of birds, the information gained from the count is critical for making informed policy and management decisions to conserve and protect birds.