Christmas Bird Count

Birds of a feather flock together.

No one knows this better than the Boundary County volunteers who work with the Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count. Each year they band together during the same two weeks, along with other chapters all over the world, to meticulously count and document every bird they see. They comb a 15-mile diameter, starting from the center of town and working their way out.

Just how many species are there? How have those numbers altered, be it through changing weather or migration patterns?

Those are some of the questions the Audubon Society set out to answer when they started their Christmas Bird Count way back in 1900. It is the longest running Citizen Scientist group in existence worldwide.

The Bonners Ferry chapter started in the mid 1980s, the first in North Idaho. They disbanded in 1990s but still have a number of volunteers. This year they had the highest number of volunteers ever, more than 32, plus 15 Bird Feeder Counters.

The counters have a lot of guidelines in place to make sure they’re getting accurate numbers. All the numbers go up on The Audubon Society’s website and the data is widely used for research within the scientific community.

According to the Bonners Ferry counters, there’s been a dip in some of the commonly-seen birds in this area since last year. Canada geese are down to 1,477 from 2,452, mallards fell to 2,068 from 2,579, Wild Turkeys at 675 from 1,028, and bald eagles dropped to 72 from 133 (adult and immature).

Overall, they counted 62 species this year. From hawks and kestrels to woodpeckers and grosbeaks to chickadees and owls, these amateur ornithologists have a keen eye for all of them. The rarest seen this year? A Bewick’s wren and a white-throated sparrow. Neither are typical to North Idaho, especially in winter.

If you would like to join the wild goose chase for 2021, you can send an email to bfbirdcount@gmail.com. Just remember: this is one group that’s for the birds, and they’re just fine with that.