2003 Christmas Bird Count (1/3/04) Highlights

Thirty-seven people signed up which may be a record. We covered seven different areas and ended with 88 species, which is second only to the 92 species of last year.

Two areas- South Snoqualmie with 55 and Phantom Lake/Cougar Mountain with 56 -  had record species counts. We had many species with high count totals.

The snow and cold weather resulted in Varied Thrush being everywhere with a total of 287 birds. The previous high was 110 in 1987.

Killdeer were also numerous with 203 birds compared to 111 in 1987.

There were 33 Bald Eagles reported compared to previous high of 16 in 1997.

Brown Creepers were prevalent with 29, previous high was 13 in 2001.

There were high counts for most of the sparrows.

It is interesting that many of the previous highs occurred in 1987, which only had a species total of 68. The remaining high counts with previous high in ( ) were as follows:

• Chestnut-backed Chickadee 79 (77)
  
• American Dipper 4 (3)
  
• Anna’s Hummingbird 4 (3)
  
• Steller’s Jay 88 (73)
  
• Dark-eyed Junco 502 (409)
  
• Merlin 3 (1)
  
• Common Raven 13 (4)
  
• Lincoln’s Sparrow 10 (9)
  
• Fox Sparrow 39 (33)
  
• Golden Sparrows 89 (67)
  
• White-crowned Sparrows 84 (34)
  
• Spotted Towhee 141 (94)
  
• Hairy Woodpecker 10 (8)
  
• Spotted Sandpiper 4 (1).
  

We also did have some low totals:

• Rock Pigeon (Rock Dove) 104 (previous low was 197)
  
• Common Goldeneye 6 (11)
  
• Ring-billed Gull 25 (32)
  
• Lesser Scaup 7 (8)
  

We had the second lowest total of European Starlings with 778 compared to 546 in 1990.

If anyone would like to see the complete results or the past 16 years summary you can email Hugh Jennings at hughbirder@bigzoo.net.