by John Besser
The Covid-19 pandemic has affected just about everything Columbia Audubon Society has done over the past year, but we have fought to maintain some of our traditions, including the Boone County-wide bird count held on the traditional ‘Big Day’, the second Saturday in May.
Our ability to conduct this count during the pandemic has a lot to do with the availability of eBird, which allows numerous teams of socially-distanced birders to share their checklists with the chapter’s eBird database, ‘casbirddata’. Once the data is in this account, it is pretty simple to download all the data for the count day and tally up the species and total numbers of birds seen countywide or in each count areas. Now that the count data is compiled, CAS has our own archived digital version of the data, and all the data is still available to Ebird users,.
Table 1. Summarizes the results of the 2021 count. We received 92 checklists from 14 count areas, representing 141 party-hours in the field. Our species total was 183, with a total count of almost 19,000 birds.
The most impressive feature of the species list is undoubtedly the 30 Warbler species, which includes species that often seen in central Missouri, including Cape May Warbler, Connecticut Warbler, and Swainson’s warbler. Also impressive were the 13 species of shorebird and 11 species each of waterfowl, sparrows and flycatchers. On the other hand, it’s disappointing to see only a single Eastern Whip-poor-will reported from Boone County.
The number of species observed in each county area varied widely depending on quality of habitat in the level of count efforts. The two areas of the highest species count were 10A, which includes Eagle Bluffs (135 species), and area (117 species), which includes most of the heavily birded City of Columbia. I’ve attached a spreadsheet that lists the species seen in each of the count areas. So check out the total for your area, and think about what species may have been missed and where to find them during the next Boone County migration count!
Thanks to all the volunteers who helped make this count happen
Species | Count |
---|---|
NAME | COUNT |
Snow Goose | 1 |
Canada Goose | 599 |
Goose sp. | 1 |
Mute Swan | 3 |
Wood Duck | 52 |
Blue-winged Teal | 718 |
Northern Shoveler | 11 |
Gadwall | 4 |
American Wigeon | 6 |
Mallard | 98 |
Green-winged Teal | 2 |
Ring-necked Duck | 1 |
Duck sp. | 6 |
Northern Bobwhite | 8 |
Wild Turkey | 26 |
Pied-billed Grebe | 3 |
Rock Pigeon | 29 |
Eur. Collared-Dove | 13 |
Mourning Dove | 209 |
Yellow-billed Cuckoo | 14 |
Common Nighthawk | 2 |
Chuck-will’s-widow | 3 |
E. Whip-poor-will | 1 |
Chimney Swift | 21 |
Ruby-thr. Hummingbird | 40 |
Virginia Rail | 3 |
Sora | 49 |
American Coot | 135 |
Semipalmated Plover | 10 |
Killdeer | 37 |
Dunlin | 8 |
Baird’s Sandpiper | 1 |
Least Sandpiper | 300 |
Wh-rumped Sandpiper | 133 |
Pectoral Sandpiper | 491 |
Semipalm. Sandpiper | 37 |
Wilson’s Phalarope | 8 |
Spotted Sandpiper | 39 |
Solitary Sandpiper | 5 |
Greater Yellowlegs | 14 |
Lesser Yellowlegs | 421 |
Gull sp. | 5 |
Black Tern | 1 |
Dbl-crested Cormorant | 31 |
American Bittern | 2 |
Great Blue Heron | 227 |
Great Egret | 180 |
Snowy Egret | 1 |
Cattle Egret | 2 |
Green Heron | 4 |
Turkey Vulture | 618 |
Mississippi Kite | 1 |
Northern Harrier | 1 |
Sharp-shinned Hawk | 1 |
Cooper’s Hawk | 3 |
Bald Eagle | 19 |
Red-shouldered Hawk | 28 |
Broad-winged Hawk | 2 |
Red-tailed Hawk | 42 |
Buteo sp. | 1 |
hawk sp. | 1 |
Great Horned Owl | 3 |
Barred Owl | 7 |
Belted Kingfisher | 4 |
Ylw-bellied Sapsucker | 4 |
R-headed Woodpecker | 74 |
R-bellied Woodpecker | 131 |
Downy Woodpecker | 71 |
Hairy Woodpecker | 10 |
Pileated Woodpecker | 28 |
Northern Flicker | 11 |
American Kestrel | 6 |
Peregrine Falcon | 8 |
Olive-sided Flycatcher | 1 |
Eastern Wood-Pewee | 64 |
Acadian Flycatcher | 17 |
Alder Flycatcher | 4 |
Willow Flycatcher | 4 |
Least Flycatcher | 49 |
Empidonax sp. | 8 |
Eastern Phoebe | 49 |
Gr. Crested Flycatcher | 149 |
Western Kingbird | 3 |
Eastern Kingbird | 110 |
Scis. tailed Flycatcher | 3 |
Flycatcher sp. | 6 |
White-eyed Vireo | 51 |
Bell’s Vireo | 8 |
Ylw-throated Vireo | 30 |
Blue-headed Vireo | 13 |
Philadelphia Vireo | 3 |
Warbling Vireo | 66 |
Red-eyed Vireo | 114 |
Vireo sp. | 1 |
Blue Jay | 201 |
American Crow | 172 |
Fish Crow | 55 |
Crow sp. | 1 |
Blk-capped Chickadee | 118 |
Tufted Titmouse | 252 |
Horned Lark | 19 |
N R-winged Swallow | 149 |
Purple Martin | 30 |
Tree Swallow | 231 |
Bank Swallow | 420 |
Barn Swallow | 680 |
Cliff Swallow | 921 |
Swallow sp. | 2300 |
Ruby-crowned Kinglet | 19 |
Re-breasted Nuthatch | 1 |
Wh.-breasted Nuthatch | 43 |
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher | 166 |
House Wren | 34 |
Sedge Wren | 1 |
Marsh Wren | 34 |
Carolina Wren | 35 |
European Starling | 410 |
Gray Catbird | 55 |
Brown Thrasher | 33 |
Northern Mockingbird | 7 |
Eastern Bluebird | 69 |
Veery | 1 |
Gray-cheeked Thrush | 8 |
Swainson’s Thrush | 181 |
Hermit Thrush | 1 |
Wood Thrush | 33 |
American Robin | 388 |
Cedar Waxwing | 1 |
House Sparrow | 171 |
House Finch | 39 |
Pine Siskin | 56 |
American Goldfinch | 279 |
Chipping Sparrow | 63 |
Clay-colored Sparrow | 1 |
Field Sparrow | 69 |
Lark Sparrow | 20 |
Wh-crowned Sparrow | 194 |
Harris’s Sparrow | 1 |
Wh-throated Sparrow | 90 |
Savannah Sparrow | 34 |
Song Sparrow | 29 |
Lincoln’s Sparrow | 9 |
Swamp Sparrow | 2 |
Eastern Towhee | 41 |
Sparrow sp. | 4 |
Yellow-breasted Chat | 41 |
Ylw-headed Blackbird | 6 |
Bobolink | 219 |
Eastern Meadowlark | 91 |
Orchard Oriole | 31 |
Baltimore Oriole | 110 |
Red-winged Blackbird | 1125 |
Br-headed Cowbird | 273 |
Common Grackle | 327 |
Great-tailed Grackle | 5 |
Blackbird sp. | 125 |
Ovenbird | 10 |
Worm-eating Warbler | 3 |
Louisiana Waterthrush | 25 |
Northern Waterthrush | 27 |
Golden-winged Warbler | 9 |
Blue-winged Warbler | 7 |
Black & white Warbler | 22 |
Prothonotary Warbler | 32 |
Swainson’s Warbler | 2 |
Tennessee Warbler | 78 |
Nashville Warbler | 66 |
Connecticut Warbler | 1 |
Mourning Warbler | 1 |
Kentucky Warbler | 34 |
Common Yellowthroat | 163 |
American Redstart | 59 |
Cape May Warbler | 2 |
Northern Parula | 120 |
Magnolia Warbler | 16 |
Blackburnian Warbler | 6 |
Yellow Warbler | 108 |
Chestnut-sided Warbler | 29 |
Blackpoll Warbler | 1 |
Palm Warbler | 16 |
Pine Warbler | 1 |
Ylw-rumped Warbler | 29 |
Ylw-throated Warbler | 19 |
Prairie Warbler | 3 |
Blk-thr. Green Warbler | 13 |
Wilson’s Warbler | 7 |
Warbler sp. | 3 |
Summer Tanager | 68 |
Scarlet Tanager | 6 |
Northern Cardinal | 634 |
Rose-br. Grosbeak | 68 |
Blue Grosbeak | 12 |
Indigo Bunting | 421 |
Dickcissel | 201 |