ATLANTIC AUDUBON SOCIETY --SOUTH JERSEY--
  • Home
  • Field Trips
  • Bird Walk Results
  • Newsletter
  • Membership Application
  • Bluebirds
  • Blogs by Jim Lehmann
  • Guest Writings
  • Special Events
  • Digiscoping
  • Jersey Birding Locales
  • Officers
  • Why Birders Have No Excuse of Being Bored

Christmas Count BLOG  from Robin

12/23/2014

0 Comments

 
National Audubon Christmas Bird Counts have been going on for 115 years, but today I participated in my very first one. Our group, Kris Arcuri, Al Marten, me, Becky Hedden and Ed Goldman who jumped in for the birding of Absecon Creek, started at 7 a.m. and birded the "Ed Bristow Route" which consisted of most of Absecon. Wow, I found some great birding spots I never knew existed and I practically live on top of them. I'll never go to Home Depot again without driving behind it, or pass by that medical complex on the Pike without pulling into their parking lot. While Al and Kris did most of the identifying, I helped spot and was the list recorder.
 
We saw 55 species of birds including Bald Eagles (2), a Harrier, a Peregrine Falcon, a Coopers Hawk, a Red-Tailed Hawk and a Sharp Shinned Hawk. We saw Green Wing Teal (4), which was a new bird for me, as was the Brown Creeper (1) and the Pied-Billed Grebe (2). We saw over 3,000 Brant! It seemed like they were everywhere. We were only stopped by the police once, but we had a sign in the car window identifying us as "Audubon Bird Count," so when he came across it parked in area where we probably shouldn't have been he knew we were o.k., and in his words, "not dumping a body in the marsh." He was really happy about that, thinking of the paperwork it would entail if that's what we were doing there.
 
We birded until 4 p.m. before the light faded, and we decided we had a long, cold day (35 degrees) and it was time to quit. We met with other birders from other Christmas Bird Count "circles" in our area at a local restaurant to hand in our checklists and compare notes. Together we counted 119 different species of birds in a 15 mile circle. Amazing! Now that I've thawed out and had dinner, I think it's time to make it an early night and fall into bed where I'm sure I'll dream of birds. Lots and lots of birds.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Jim Lehmann

    Archives

    January 2022
    December 2021
    August 2021
    March 2021
    December 2020
    October 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly