
Mid-May at Wyoming Hereford Ranch, Cliff Swallows are picking up daubs of mud from the corrals to build their nests under the eaves of a nearby barn. Photo by Mark Gorges.
Published June 14, 2015, in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, “Changes in spring bird count bring up questions.”
By Barb Gorges
A Virginia’s warbler was the celebratory guest at the Cheyenne – High Plains Audubon Society’s Big Day Bird Count May 16.
This southwestern bird is a rare migrant in our area. Two other rare migrants were broad-winged hawk, an eastern species, and black tern.
This year 110 species were counted. This is lower than a typical count the last several years—and way lower than the counts in the 1990s, averaging 140-150 species.
It could be the result of a change in the birders participating. For many years, the Murie Audubon Society put on a bird class in Casper every spring and many of the students made an overnight excursion to be here at the crack of dawn for the Big Day. More eyeballs equals more birds seen. This year only one person came down.
However, the Laramie Audubon Society has taken to scheduling a field trip to the Wyoming Hereford Ranch on our Big Day. This year they brought 14 people to augment our 20.
Possibly another change is that back in the 1990s, Bob and Jane Dorn birded the High Plains Grasslands Research Station at 6 a.m. Now we don’t get there until nearly lunch time, after birding Lions Park and the ranch. Birds are more active early in the day.
In the world of birdwatching, a big day is a marathon to see how many species an individual or a small team can see in 24 hours. The area birded may be limited. The American Birding Association, for the sake of competition, has rules that describe how many people can be on the team and what percentage of the species counted have to be seen by all team members.
By contrast, Cheyenne’s count starts out as one big group and slowly dissolves into individuals by afternoon. Perhaps we should lean more toward the Christmas Bird Count model and have groups of people birding each hot spot simultaneously at dawn.
There’s also the possibility that the birds have changed over the years. While Cheyenne residents have planted more trees, inviting more songbird species, areas of prairie we used to check are now developed and thus, no burrowing owls or longspurs found on the day of the count.
Typically, spring migration is a short burst, compared to fall migration, which begins sometime in July with shorebirds and still finds some species straggling south in November and December.
Now we can look at observations for this May in Laramie County at www.eBird.org to see where the peak of migration was. There was a total of 173 species observed for the month. Keep in mind many pass through within a week’s time or less:
1st week – 79 species
2nd week – 99 species
3rd week – 145 species
4th week – 128 species.
The third week includes our Big Day, but had 35 more species than we saw on May 16, which was a cold day so perhaps birds were sitting tight and were more visible the rest of that week.
Even in the age of eBird, our Big Day is worth the effort, I think. It’s a chance to learn to identify, with the help of the best local birders, species that are here rarely or for a short time, like the Virginia’s Warbler.
Simply, it is a great time for birders to flock together and enjoy the magic of migration.
Cheyenne Big Day Bird Count 2015
Canada Goose
Gadwall
American Wigeon
Mallard
Blue-winged Teal
Cinnamon Teal
Northern Shoveler
Northern Pintail
Redhead
Ring-necked Duck
Lesser Scaup
Ruddy Duck
Ring-necked Pheasant
Pied-billed Grebe
Eared Grebe
Western Grebe
Double-crested Cormorant
American White Pelican
Great Blue Heron
Black-crowned Night-Heron
Turkey Vulture
Cooper’s Hawk
Broad-winged Hawk
Swainson’s Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
American Kestrel
American Coot
Killdeer
American Avocet
Spotted Sandpiper
Wilson’s Snipe
Wilson’s Phalarope
Franklin’s Gull
Ring-billed Gull
Black Tern
Rock Pigeon
Eurasian Collared-Dove
Mourning Dove
Eastern Screech-Owl
Great Horned Owl
Chimney Swift
Broad-tailed Hummingbird
Belted Kingfisher
Downy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Western Wood-Pewee
Willow Flycatcher
Least Flycatcher
Cordilleran Flycatcher
Say’s Phoebe
Cassin’s Kingbird
Western Kingbird
Eastern Kingbird
Loggerhead Shrike
Plumbeous Vireo
Blue Jay
Black-billed Magpie
American Crow
Common Raven
Horned Lark
Northern Rough-winged Swallow
Tree Swallow
Bank Swallow
Barn Swallow
Cliff Swallow
Black-capped Chickadee
Mountain Chickadee
Red-breasted Nuthatch
House Wren
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Swainson’s Thrush
American Robin
Gray Catbird
Brown Thrasher
European Starling
Northern Waterthrush
Orange-crowned Warbler
Virginia’s Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
American Redstart
Yellow Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Wilson’s Warbler
Green-tailed Towhee
Spotted Towhee
Chipping Sparrow
Clay-colored Sparrow
Vesper Sparrow
Lark Sparrow
Lark Bunting
Song Sparrow
Lincoln’s Sparrow
White-crowned Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Western Tanager
Black-headed Grosbeak
Red-winged Blackbird
Western Meadowlark
Yellow-headed Blackbird
Brewer’s Blackbird
Common Grackle
Brown-headed Cowbird
Orchard Oriole
Bullock’s Oriole
House Finch
Red Crossbill
Pine Siskin
American Goldfinch
House Sparrow