Denver Urban CBC

[Hugh Kingery]

            The Denver Urban Count smiled with more participants than ever: 138 Field Workers and 17 Feeder Watchers. We tallied 86 species and 46,484 individuals,  compared with the average 83 species and 38,528 individuals.

 

            Canada/Cackling geese outnumbered all the other birds – 54% of the total. Most of the nine next most abundant species befit an urban count (although lots of ducks congregated on the South Platte):

          25,197 Canada & Cackling Geese      

            6,035 Eurasian Starling

            2,841 Red-winged Blackbird

            2,544 Rock Pigeon

            1,598 N. Shoveler

            1,514 Ring-billed Gull

               892 Mallard

               791 Am. Robin

               736 Am. Crow

               609 House Sparrow (one feeder watcher counted 200 – “they descended like weaver finches in Africa”).

 

     We recorded only two record-high counts:

            13 Pied-billed Grebes and 72 Bushtits.

     Other high counts included

            2,841 Red-winged Blackbird (2^nd highest),

                 27 Townsend’s Solitaires (2^nd highest), and

               791 Am. Robin (3^rd highest).

     One new bird for the count: 44 Great-tailed Grackles at a horse farm in Aurora.

 

We had more low counts than high counts.

              29  Blue Jays (ave. 37)

            283 Black-billed Magpies (ave. 650) yet Am. Crows a bit above average;

                2 Mountain Chickadees (ave. 8) but 182 Black-caps – a bit more than average – and slightly more than average nuthatches (19 Red-breasted and 16 White-breasted);

        Sparrows way down:

              35 Am. Tree Sparrows (ave. 230),

              22 Song Sparrows (ave. 70) (both lowest ever), and

            207 Dark-eyed Juncos (ave. 402).

            House Finches (326) and House Sparrows (609) both came in at their lowest-ever totals, both 25% of average.

            Also fewer ducks (4,060 – 66% of average) and raptors (111 – 65% of average; fewer Red-tailed Hawks than the last four years).

 

            These numbers seem to reflect the experience of other Colorado CBCs this year, all affected by the extreme cold in early December. Ice covered Cherry Creek Reservoir and most of the other bodies of water except for the South Platte (even though that didn’t slow down the geese).

Hugh Kingery
Franktown, CO