Vancouver Audubon recently released the results of its annual Christmas bird count. On Dec. 15, volunteers counted 93,302 birds in a single day. Results were published in the organization’s March newsletter.
For more than three decades, Ridgefield resident Susan Setterberg has ignored December’s frigid temperatures, soggy downpours and blustery winds to participate in the count. She is just one of tens of thousands of volunteers who turn out each year for the Audubon’s annual bird count, a 125-year-old effort to collect information on North America’s bird population.
“I did my first one in the ’80s, but that was back East. This was my 11th year here,” Setterberg said. “As soon as I got (to Southwest Washington), I found it and signed up.”
Setterberg now leads the local count, assigning volunteers to work in teams at various locations within the Sauvie circle, a 15-mile-wide circle with its center point on Sauvie Island in Oregon that encompasses 177 square miles of land and water.
“That’s a huge, huge swath of land that we do on the Washington side,” Setterberg said.
Data collected here is sent to the national Audubon Society, which compiles and analyzes results from hundreds of circles across North America. The data is then used to create the “State of the Birds” report from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Cornell University.
“They can see the major trends of things going up and down. And all of our work contributes to that,” Setterberg said.
Teams working on the Washington side are mostly from Vancouver Audubon. Many of the teams work in the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge. On the Oregon side of the circle, volunteers from Oregon Bird Alliance, Oregon Birding Association and other groups make the trip to Sauvie Island.
The circle “stays the same from year to year,” Setterberg said. “The beauty of it is the consistency.”
Vancouver Audubon’s first Christmas count was in 1967 and had 10 volunteers. The most recent count had 80 volunteers divided into 26 teams, spending an estimated 385 hours watching for birds.
“It can be anyone. It doesn’t have to be a Vancouver Audubon person. Once in a while, somebody will read about it or hear about it, and they want to do a bird count with their kids, which I love,” Setterberg said. “So I always save a nice little park area for them, like Abrams Park in Ridgefield, which is great for a family to do.”
Since that first count, 213 species have been identified in the Sauvie circle. Among the birds spotted this year were more commonly known species like robins, blackbirds, crows, sparrows and Canada geese, and less well-known birds like the dark-eyed junco, long-billed dowitcher, greater and lesser yellowlegs, and black-crowned heron.
Six teams went out in the field in the early hours to listen for short-eared and barn owls, and other various nocturnal birds.
Counts for each species varied widely. Robins were below the average of 418, with 381 spotted. Dark-eyed juncos average 725 per count, but only 524 were spotted this year. However, downy woodpeckers set a new high of 78, and pileated woodpeckers tied the 2018 high of 18. Red-breasted sapsuckers were also below average, but hairy woodpeckers were about average.
Setterberg said looking at counts for any single year cannot give you a clear picture of what’s happening to bird populations. Population changes have to be tracked over several years, which is why participating in the nationwide event is so important, she said.
“We also report the time we are watching and the distance we covered. They take the data and analyze it, including time and distance, and that’s where you see the bigger trends,” she said.
There are changes happening locally. For example, Setterberg said the number of snow geese coming to the refuge has been on the rise. But the number of pelicans, which used to be common, has dropped considerably.
She said the Christmas count is always full of surprises.
“You never know what you’re going to find this year. I think that the excitement of ‘What’s going to be out there?’ really kind of drives you to do Christmas group counts,” she said.
December’s Christmas count was Setterberg’s last time organizing the event, although not likely her last to join in. She said being a part of citizen science, helping to collect data that can be used for policymaking, still holds appeal.
“You’re participating and saying, ‘This is important to me. This is where we have to pay attention. This is why we need refuges and protected land.’ That’s a big part of why I do it,” she said.
