Barr Lake CBC results

[Colin Woolley]

On New Years Eve we conducted the 43rd consecutive CBC at Barr Lake. We had nice calm weather, great visibility, and a great turnout with 39 participants. We tallied 54,114 birds of 76 species, a bit above our average of ~70 species for the count circle. 

The relatively mild winter so far made for a lot of open water across Barr Lake and nearby reservoirs, leading to very high counts for waterfowl across the board. Cackling and Canada Geese always lead the way in this circle, this year coming in at 16,626 for those species combined. We had all time highs of Northern Shovelers, Northern Pintails, American Coots, and Western Grebes (4 this year, only 1 ever prior). Snow Geese and Ross's Geese were also quite high, though not all-time highs. The high visibility also probably contributed to our all-time high count of Bald Eagles, coming in at 153 this year (prior record of 120 in 2021).

Some songbird numbers were on the low end (but not all-time lows).We had unusually low counts of Black-capped Chickadees, American Tree Sparrows, Song Sparrows, Dark-eyed Juncos and American Robins. We missed out entirely on a few species that are less common but usually present each year such as Brown Creepers and Hairy Woodpeckers. 

Thanks to all the participants this year, it was our highest turnout over the last decade; great to see more and more folks in recent years!

Cheers, 

Colin Woolley

Bird Conservancy of the Rockies

Barr Lake CBC Compiler

Wheat Ridge, CO