A rainy and mild late December influenced birdwatchers as well as the birds for the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count in Pittsburgh.
With 215 participants, it was an average year for volunteers who counted almost 36,000 birds of 76 species.
“We had many more planned to participate and we still had an excellent number of volunteers,” said Brian Shema, operations manager for the Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania and coordinator of the Pittsburgh Christmas count.
“But with the freakin’ rain we get on every count hindered that.”
The rain made for a slow day for people counting at backyard feeders as well, he added.
Rain, temperatures, volunteer ranks and other factors are weighed when National Audubon works with the raw data submitted by Pittsburgh and other count areas, Shema said.
The Christmas bird count is the national annual census of the birds with volunteers braving whatever weather conditions Mother Nature throws.
Conservationists started the first Christmas Bird Count in 1900 as a humane alternative to the tradition of hunting birds on Christmas Day. Since then, the Christmas count has been held in more than 20 countries with the long-term data used by scientists to gauge population trends.
The count is always scheduled for the first Saturday after Christmas in Pittsburgh — Dec. 30 this time — with other dates elsewhere.
There weren’t many rare or unusual species this year, save for a red-headed woodpecker, Shema said.
But several species showed up with high counts, besting or tying records since 1916, including some species that typically leave for the winter.
Volunteers recorded all-time high numbers in 2023 for the cute, 3-inch winter visitor named after a king, the golden-crowned kinglet (110), the red-winged blackbird (81), the killdeer (21) and bald eagle (8).
The killdeer and red-winged blackbird, both short-distance migrants, are here in the summer with some birds spending the winter here.
“High counts of those species point to a milder winter,” Shema said. “Anyone living in Pittsburgh knows we are having milder winters than those a couple of decades ago.”
In the last 30 years, the average temperature in winter – December through February – has increased by about 2.5 degrees while large-scale snow events decreased,” said Jared Rackley, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Moon.
Given the milder temperatures and lack of large storms, more short-distance migrants are choosing not to leave.
Kinglets stayed
“They look for food opportunities to stay alive,” Shema said.
He is not sure what accounts for the high number of golden-crowned kinglets, a winter migrant here that nests as close as the Laurel Highlands in summer.
The Audubon South Butler Christmas Bird Count, held Dec. 31, also turned up a high number of golden-crowned kinglets, which was among its 59 species tallied.
“They are a highly detectable species with that triple high-pitched call note,” Shema said. “It’s not that we overlooked that bird in the past.”
The high number of bald eagles is less significant but still notable, Shema said.
Although the number of bald eagles counted increases annually, it is a bird that moves around and can be easily double-counted, he said.
“Someone in Etna can see one fly up the river and 10 minutes later someone can see it in Harmar,” he noted.
1 woodpecker
Other species tied their highest counts on record.
The red-headed woodpecker was found at Sheraden Park in Sheraden.
One is the record. Before the 2023 bird count, one bird was recorded during five previous counts in Pittsburgh.
“Red-headed populations are very low. Any way you cut it’s a rare bird and that’s the unfortunate truth,” Shema said.
The charismatic and noisy woodpecker has been declining in the state by an average of 2.4% between 1966 and 2015, according to the Pennsylvania Game Commission.
A pair of red-headed woodpeckers have been nesting across the street from Audubon’s Succop Nature Park in Butler County, Shema said.
Two other woodpecker species tied high counts – the Northern flicker (85) and the hairy woodpecker (93).
“They are resident species and we expect them to be here. They are easily detectable,” he said.
Pittsburgh ravens
The seven sightings of the common raven tied its high count.
A conspicuous bird that is larger than a crow, the raven has a hoarse croak that gives it away. The Pittsburgh Christmas count started picking up ravens in 2007.
“The uptick of that species for the count would suggest there are more common ravens in Pittsburgh than just a couple of decades ago,” Shema said.
Four ravens were counted in the Mon Valley during its first Christmas bird count on Dec. 17. The count drew 47 volunteers who counted 51 species and 2,322 individual birds.
Mary Ann Thomas: mthomas@post-gazette.com
First Published: February 1, 2024, 10:30 a.m.
Updated: February 3, 2024, 12:10 a.m.