2018 Christmas Bird Count Results

2018 La Crosse Area Christmas Bird Count

Saturday, December 15, 2018

From Dan Jackson on 12/21/2018:I have all reports and this is the final update.
We tallied a total of 70 species including 69 species on count day and 1 count week addition (Sandhill Crane). The count total for individuals seen on count day stands at 13,090 birds. Some of the highlights included a Ruby-crowned Kinglet, 2 Pied-billed Grebes, 1 Common Raven, 1 Ruffed Grouse, 1 Merlin, and a count week Sandhill Crane.
70 species on a year with mostly frozen water is a great total. Our highest count years occur when there is mostly open water on the river and therefore many species of waterfowl. In the past 53 years that this count has been carried out, there are only 4 years that had a species count higher than 70 species and all were open water years. This represents close to 400 hours of combined effort on the part of 97 participants (the total says 101, but 4 people did both a feeder count and a section count). All that I can say is WOW!!
Click Here for the final tally sheet for this year's Count.
Thanks everyone for your help!!
Happy Holidays,
Dan Jackson

From Lennie Lichter on 12/20/2018:
The American Robins continue with their inexplicable every-other-year pattern in 2018. High counts of robins have been seen in even-numbered years and low counts have been seen in odd-numbered years ever since around 1989, with only one outlier in 2015 when the total that year was higher than in 2014.
This year's count was the first one in a while where no new species were recorded.
Happy Holidays to everyone!