Christmas Bird Count comparison, 1956 and 2023

Black-billed magpies are always out and about no matter the weather on the day of the Cheyenne Christmas Bird Count, including this bird photographed during the latest count Dec. 16, 2023. Photo by Mark Gorges.

Latest Cheyenne Christmas Bird Count looks a bit different from 1956’s

Published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle Jan. 5, 2024.

By Barb Gorges

            Recently, Bob Dorn shared the results of the Cheyenne Christmas Bird Count from the December 1955-January 1956 count season, the 56th CBC (overall).

            It’s interesting to compare the differences over 68 years:

–Then, the 7.5-mile-diameter count circle was centered on the KFBC radio station when it was on East Lincolnway, where Channel 5 is now, Dave Montgomery told me. Now it’s the Capitol.

–Then, the percentage of open country was higher. Laramie County had only 60,000 people, today 100,000.

–The Cheyenne Audubon Club became the Cheyenne – High Plains Audubon Society in 1974.

–Married women now get to use their own first names. I first met Mrs. Robert Hanesworth, May, in 1989, when she was the Cheyenne count compiler.

            Lt. Col. Charles H. Snyder could have been with F.E. Warren Air Force Base, giving count participants access to that part of the count circle. Today we have retired Colonel Charles Seniawski birding the base for us.

            Seven bird names have changed:

–Some Canada geese are now cackling geese.

–Marsh hawk is now northern harrier.

–Red-shafted and yellow-shafted flickers are now northern flicker.

–American magpie is now black-billed magpie.

–Gray shrike is now northern shrike.

–Common starling is now European starling.

–The white-winged, Oregon and pink-sided juncos were combined with other juncos as the dark-eyed junco.

            Participation has changed, too. We had 24 people help this time compared to only 7 in 1956. So naturally we traveled more hours and more miles by foot and vehicle. And back in the 50s, apparently the hours put into watching bird feeders weren’t separated.

            For our Dec. 16 count we had similar weather, not too windy, no snow, but warmer, 50s instead of 40s.

            As for the birds themselves, we counted more species, more geese, crows and starlings. Interestingly, we reported a greater variety of ducks, hawks and falcons, too.

            But it’s been a long time since we’ve seen evening grosbeaks. This may be the result of the decline in their population overall.

            This year’s highlights were the northern goshawk in Western Hills seen during count week (CW), the three days before and after count day, and the lone snow goose at Lions Park.

Audubon Field Notes – 56th CBC

Published by the National Audubon Society in Collaboration with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

56th Christmas Bird Count

Vol. 10, No.2

two dollars per copy 

April 1956

436. Cheyenne, Wyo. (7 ½-mile radius centering from radio station KFBC on east edge of town; city parks and cemeteries 30%, open prairie, deciduous & evergreen trees 20%, prairie roadside 10%, open meadows, reservoirs and creek bottoms 40%).

Jan. 2, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Clear; temp. 31 degrees to 46 degrees; wind W, 15-35 m.p.h.; no snow. Seven observers in 3 parties. Total party-hour, 56 (6 on foot, 50 by car); total party-miles, 148 (8 on foot, 140 by car).

Canada Goose 12

Mallard 20

Rough-legged Hawk 5

Golden Eagle 1

Marsh Hawk 1

Red-shafted Flicker 13

Hairy Woodpecker 1

Downy Woodpecker 1

Horned Lark 2029 (4 Northern)

American Magpie 25

American Robin 3

Bohemian Waxwing 2

Gray Shrike 1

Common Starling 98

House Sparrow 138

Evening Grosbeak 25

House Finch 4

Pine Grosbeak 4

Pine Siskin 2

White-winged Junco 1

Oregon Junco 86 (pink-sided 84)

American Tree Sparrow 18

Lapland Longspur 22

Total, 23 species (2 additional subsp.), about 2512 individuals. (Observed in area count period: American Goldeneye, Ring-necked Pheasant, Mountain Chickadee, Mockingbird, Townsend’s Solitaire, Common Redpoll, Slate-colored Junco).

Charles Brown, Mrs. Charles Brown, Mr. & Mrs. Robert Hanesworth, Wilhelmina Miller, Lt. Col. and Mrs. Charles H. Snyder (compiler) (Cheyenne Audubon Club).

Cheyenne Christmas Bird Count – 124^th CBC

Dec. 16, 2023

24 participants

Feeder watch time: 11 hours, 36 minutes

Walking: 12 hours, 25 minutes, 19.56 miles

Driving: 4 hours 19 minutes, 87.3 miles

Compiler: Grant Frost

Cackling Goose 183

Canada Goose 1686

Snow Goose 1

Mallard 207

Northern Shoveler 18

Green-winged Teal 3

Lesser Scaup CW

Common Goldeneye 2

Rock Dove (pigeon) 479

Eurasian Collared-Dove 107

Mourning Dove 3

Ring-billed Gull CW

Golden Eagle 1

Northern Harrier 9

Sharp-shinned Hawk CW

Cooper’s Hawk 1

American Goshawk CW

Bald Eagle 2

Red-tailed Hawk 6

Rough-legged Hawk CW

Ferruginous Hawk 1

Eastern Screech-Owl CW

Great Horned Owl 1

Belted Kingfisher 2

Downy Woodpecker 3

Hairy Woodpecker 1

Northern Flicker 21

American Kestrel 2

Merlin 2

Northern Shrike 1

Blue Jay 2

Black-billed Magpie 84

American Crow 108

Common Raven 12

Black-capped Chickadee 1

Mountain Chickadee 9

Horned Lark 270

White-breasted Nuthatch 1

Red-breasted Nuthatch 2

Brown Creeper 1

Winter Wren 1

European Starling 221

Townsend’s Solitaire 5

American Robin 2

House Sparrow 205

House Finch 63

Pine Siskin 1

American Goldfinch 9

American Tree Sparrow 13

Chipping Sparrow 1

Dark-eyed Junco 61

White-crowned Sparrow 6

Song Sparrow 2

Red-winged Blackbird 50

Bird strikes and bird movements interest UW students

A fledgling sage thrasher wears a radio tag that tracks its movements. The antenna appears as a thin, very long tailfeather. Photo courtesy of Emily Schertzer, University of Wyoming.

Bird strikes and bird movements interest University of Wyoming students

Published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle Nov. 3, 2023.

By Barb Gorges

            Cheyenne Audubon’s October meeting attendees heard from two University of Wyoming students about their bird studies, and about WYOBIRD, the Wyoming Bird Initiative for Resilience and Diversity.

            Katie Shabron is an undergraduate who is already involved in bird studies, measuring the number of birds killed by colliding with windows on campus. Window collisions are the second worst human-caused hazard for birds in the U.S.—the first is loose cats.

            This fall there was a terrible slaughter of migrating songbirds in one day caused by the perfect reflection of sky by the all-glass façade of the giant McCormick convention center on the edge of Lake Michigan in downtown Chicago. It’s been a hazard for years.

            On the UW campus, trees and building facades have been mapped and a phone app made available to students allows them to record instances of dead birds as well as no dead birds.

            Katie said the first year’s data didn’t pick up many dead birds, creating more questions such as, are campus building layout and design not conducive to bird strikes? Are birds hitting windows but fluttering away and dying elsewhere?

            Katie said the most effective defense against window strikes, if it’s too late to install the special glass, is sheets of tiny dots that stick to the outside of windows. They are only visible from outside. Turning out lights at night, which UW does, and especially on tall buildings in big cities, reduces strikes, too.

            PhD candidate Emily Shertzer is focused on tracking birds across their full annual cycle as she studies the effect of gas field development on birds near Pinedale.

Traditionally, bird studies have taken place during breeding season, when birds are returning to their breeding grounds and sticking around their nests. That was partly due to the tracking methods available, like banding.

            Emily bands birds with the traditional metal leg band with the unique number that can be looked up through the national Bird Banding Laboratory if the bird is recaptured. Her birds also have three colored bands in unique combinations so that they can be identified by sight, without having to capture them.

            Radio telemetry has been around for a while for large animals, but now that radio tags can be small enough for birds to wear, it’s possible to track the bird’s location every 30 seconds. It’s much easier to figure out what kills birds on the breeding grounds where fledgling mortality is high.

            Through the MOTUS system of stationary antenna towers being set up around the world by different entities, a bird’s more extensive travels can be tracked as they fly by and ping an antenna. Each passing bird can be identified and the owner of the tracking device on it is notified.

            Emily has set up a similar, but small system to track her study birds around their breeding territory after she finds a nest of a Brewer’s sparrow, sage sparrow or sage thrasher. Being able to track the young birds means she can find them quickly if they die and discover the reason such as hail or other bad weather or predators. If birds can make it past the fledgling stage and all the predators and accidents waiting to happen, they might live seven or eight years.

            The condition of the parent birds predicts the condition of the young and their ability to survive those early days. Apparently, human development within their breeding area does negatively affect fledgling survival.

            Do these attached radio devices make a bird more likely to die? No, they don’t seem to. The tags have to be less than 3% of the bird’s weight.

            Emily’s subjects are migratory birds and their routes can be traced by equipping them with geolocators. These don’t send signals but instead, they record light levels, showing the timing of sunrise and sunset where the bird is. Turns out this is a way to tell the bird’s migratory route and where it spends the winter. But you have to recapture that bird when it returns in the spring to get the data. Good thing males are fairly faithful to their breeding site.

            Finding out where birds die is a step towards improving conditions. Emily cited the example of two populations of one songbird species that breed hundreds of miles apart in southeastern U.S. One population was doing well, the other was rapidly declining. A study showed the population doing well had spent the winter spread out in Central and northern South America. The declining group all spent the winter together in a comparatively small area where their habitat was rapidly being destroyed.

            We need lots more ornithologists studying birds to understand their many characteristics and behaviors. UW’s WYOBIRD program gives students more field experience and builds interest in bird studies. Check out the opportunities for involvement and support, https://wyobird.org/.

                Emily is also looking for funding for her continuing studies. Contact her at eshertze@uwyo.edu.

eBird perks and processes

By summer, young black-crowned night-herons from the Holliday Park colony are fishing along the edge of the lake. Photo by Mark Gorges.

Birders get look behind the scenes, find more eBird perks

Published March 3, 2023, in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.

By Barb Gorges

            eBird has come a long way since its debut in 2002.

            As a means of collecting scientific bird data by offering birders a place to save their bird lists, Cornell Lab of Ornithology invented an ingenious bit of community (or citizen) science and it just keeps getting better.

            Anyone can go to eBird.org and sign up for free. The website, under the Help tab, has tutorials on how to enter your bird sightings.

            Don Jones, University of Wyoming graduate student studying sagebrush songbirds, and Cheyenne Audubon’s February guest speaker, said that for Wyoming, 15,000 different birdwatchers have submitted 200,000 checklists so far. Wyoming eBird data was recently added to the Wyoming Natural Diversity Database.

            Globally, as of the 20^th anniversary in May 2022, 820,000 eBirders contributed 1.3 billion observations.

            Since scientists are expected to use eBird data, there is a review process. Once, I received a polite email from the regional reviewer asking if I had indeed seen 49 black-crowned night-herons at Holliday Park, and if so, could I send more information.

            When I explained that it was a breeding colony that has been there for years (and is still there, but a bit diminished as the park loses the big cottonwoods), my report was accepted. Today, I can look up that night-heron sighting on eBird and tell you it started May 29 at 7:45 a.m. and I saw 220 birds of 15 species while walking 1.5 miles in an hour.

            Don, a volunteer eBird reviewer for 10 years, explained that if the reviewer doesn’t think you have enough information to verify the entry, the entry can stay on your list but it won’t be publicly available. Don’s been in that boat, especially when birding abroad when he’s discovered he’s made identification mistakes. But then he was able to fix them.

            The globe is divided into review areas. We are in the Laramie/Goshen counties area. Volunteer reviewers familiar with the bird life here, like Don, set a filter for each species specifying which months it might be seen and maximum number seen at one time. The number is higher for a migratory species during migration months than during breeding months when birds spread out and become secretive.

            Filters do change over time. Perhaps an invasive species like the Eurasian collared-dove has moved in or another species, like the dickcissel, is becoming rarer.

            In the last few years, eBird has added new perks for birdwatchers. One is signing up for notices for birds you’d like to see.

            For instance, I can generate a list of species I haven’t seen in Laramie County but others have – target species. My 87 target species seem to be a lot of rarities – species unlikely to be seen here, but maybe common elsewhere. For instance, eBird has only three reports of prairie warbler, an eastern species, in Cheyenne, in 2000 and 2001. I have a much better chance of finding native burrowing owls last reported in 2022.

            Once you know what birds you want to see, you can sign up for alerts. There are two kinds. Rare Bird Alerts are for species the American Birding Association considers rare for your area of interest. If I sign up for Needs Alerts for Laramie County, I’ll be alerted whenever someone reports a species I haven’t seen here yet.

            Note: When eBird says “Laramie,” they mean our county, not our neighboring town to the west.   

            eBird is handy for preparing for a birding trip to an area you aren’t familiar with by showing where publicly accessible hotspots are and generating a list of species for you. You can see the latest observations.

            You can even generate a multiple-choice species identification quiz for a location at a particular time of year, either with photos or bird sounds.

            After your trip, you can pull together all the checklists you submitted and add notes and photos to make a “Trip Report” to save and share.

            Under the Science tab are all sorts of wonderous interpretations of eBird data: Visualizations of bird abundance, abundance trends, migratory route animations plus improved range maps showing breeding, wintering and migration areas for each species.

            There’s the list of published studies using eBird data. There were 160 peer-reviewed publications in 2022, like this one: “Bai, J., P. Hou, D. Jin, J. Zhai, Y. Ma, and J. Zhao (2022) “Habitat Suitability Assessment of Black-Necked Crane (Grus nigricollis) in the Zoige Grassland Wetland Ecological Function Zone on the Eastern Tibetan Plateau.” Diversity 14(7).”

            It’s incredible to think we birdwatchers, while having fun watching birds all over the world, with just a little extra effort, maybe using the mobile app, can contribute knowledge that helps birds.

            For questions about eBird in Wyoming, contact Don Jones through the University of Wyoming online directory.

Be a Community Scientist

At Lions Park last December while on the Cheyenne Christmas Bird Count, Mark Gorges uses a scope to count geese resting around open water on Sloans Lake, Dennis Saville looks for hawks in the distance and Pete Sokolosky checks overhead for songbirds on tree branches. Photo by Barb Gorges.

Audubon Rockies’ Zach Hutchinson discusses community science

Published Nov. 4, 2022, in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.

By Barb Gorges

            Zach Hutchinson is Audubon Rockies’ community science coordinator. He is currently located in Casper, although he plans to relocate to Cheyenne as soon as local real estate prices are realistic.

            He spoke at Cheyenne Audubon’s October meeting about community science, which started out being called “citizen science.” The new name is more inclusive – you don’t have to be a U.S. citizen to participate – or be a college-educated scientist.

            Zach said community science contributed to Bird Migration Explorer, https://explorer.audubon.org/. I’ll have more about this new endeavor in a future column.

            Community science has also contributed data to the State of the Birds 2022 report, www.stateofthebirds.org/2022.

            Most groups of birds, including our grassland birds, are still losing population, while others increased during the last couple decades. For instance, waterfowl increased because they benefitted from concentrated efforts by sporting groups, although you don’t have to be a hunter to buy a Federal Duck Stamp to contribute.

            This year’s report highlights North American species that are at the “tipping point” which means, after having lost 50% or more of their population since 1970, the report said, “These 70 species are on a trajectory to lose another 50% of their remnant populations in the next 50 years if nothing changes.”

            Thirteen of those tipping point species occur in Wyoming regularly, either as residents or migrants, some considered common and others uncommon on this scale: abundant, common, uncommon, rare. I didn’t include the species that are rare in our state in this list of 13:

Greater Sage-Grouse

Western Grebe

Rufous Hummingbird

Mountain Plover

Long-billed Dowitcher

Lesser Yellowlegs

Red-headed Woodpecker

Olive-sided Flycatcher

Pinyon Jay

Evening Grosbeak

Black Rosy-Finch

Chestnut-collared Longspur

Bobolink

The primary causes of downward population trends are:

1. Habitat loss.

2. Cats (2.6 billion birds a year).

3. Windows, (624 million).

4. Vehicle collisions (214 million).

5. Industrial collisions, including wind turbines (64 million).

Zach went over the seven ways we can help birds:

1. Make windows safer day and night.

2. Keep cats indoors.

3. Reduce lawn, plant natives.

4. Avoid pesticides.

5. Drink shade-grown coffee.

6. Protect our planet from plastic (Think of waterbirds mistaking floating plastic for food.).

7. Watch birds, share what you see.

For more about each point, see www.birds.cornell.edu/home/seven-simple-actions-to-help-birds/.

“Watch birds, share what you see,” means taking part in community science. Zach said this is how we find out about population trends, range expansion, and if there are losses, we can see where in the life cycle it happens so that action can be focused.

You’ve probably heard me talk about www.eBird.org before. Birdwatchers submit lists of birds they’ve seen, anywhere and anytime, using smart phones or computers.

I can delve into the data on the website and discover 272 species have been observed at the Wyoming Hereford Ranch headquarters, 216 at Lions Park and 151 at the High Plains Grasslands Research Station where the Cheyenne Arboretum is located.

Zach Hutchinson releases a hummingbird. Photo courtesy of Zach Hutchinson.

The Christmas Bird Count is the most famous annual community science project, with this year’s being the 123^rd.

Two years ago, Zach said, 80,000 people took part, counted 2,355 species (world-wide), and travelled 500,000 miles on foot, by skis and by other means. Check https://cheyenneaudubon.org/  to find out about participating in the Cheyenne count in December.

The Great Backyard Bird Count, a snapshot of where birds are in late winter, celebrated its 24th anniversary last February. In 192 countries, 384,641 people participated and 7,099 species were counted on 359,479 checklists submitted. It’s held over Presidents’ Day weekend. 

Zach runs bird banding stations every summer and people sign up to help (https://rockies.audubon.org/). Birds are caught in fine “mist nets,” and then are measured and banded.

This year, 54 species were netted at Zach’s stations. Usually, 500 new birds are banded but this summer it was only 340, probably because the drought has affected breeding and recruitment, Zach said.

Audubon Rockies launched a new community science project last summer on the Yampa River in Colorado. People on commercial float trips, including Zach, counted birds: 55 species and 732 individual birds. Stopping for a few minutes in a calm eddy in otherwise inaccessible places to count birds will add richness to the tourists’ experiences and give science a new perspective.

There are other community science endeavors, such as iNaturalist, which is interested in plants as well as animals. Some have been very specific, such as The Lost Ladybug Project.

Bird banding provides data on demographics, productivity, recruitment (adding individuals to the population) and survival – when a bird previously banded is recaptured, or a band is recovered from a dead bird.

Consider becoming a community science participant in one or more ways.

Addendum: How could I forget Project FeederWatch? Go to feederwatch.org to sign up for reporting your backyard birds this winter. This year, Project FeederWatch tells me Mark and I have counted for 24 seasons.

Raptor Alley magic

Gary Lefko (white shirt) hands out raptor identification tip sheets to birdwatchers gathered in Nunn, Colorado, Feb. 19 before leading them on a tour of Raptor Alley. Photo by Barb Gorges.

Raptors entice birdwatchers to make cold, early start to follow “The Nunn Guy”

By Barb Gorges

            A Cheyenne Audubon field trip in mid-February, starting at a frosty 8 a.m., usually attracts only a handful of diehards. But throw the word “raptor” into the publicity and suddenly there are 20-some people milling around in the parking lot at Lions Park, anxious to go see eagles, hawks, falcons and owls.

            Or maybe it was the thought of travelling south to a balmier climate. Our destination, “Raptor Alley,” starts in Nunn, Colorado, 30 miles south of Cheyenne. And it was balmy—50 degrees, sunny, no wind and dry gravel roads.

            We met our tour guide, Gary Lefko, “The Nunn Guy,” at the Soaring V Fuels gas station/store. A seasoned trip leader knows how important it is to start a birding trip with empty bladders, especially in the nearly treeless farm fields of eastern Colorado.

            Gary was also prepared with raptor identification handouts, good thinking because Mark and I discovered just before we left Cheyenne that many in the group considered themselves novice bird watchers.

            Caravanning is not the ideal way to introduce people to birds. With carpooling, we pared down the number of vehicles to nine. When we joined Gary, he used handheld radios to tell our car what he was seeing and then I texted a message to one person in each vehicle, such as “Red-tailed on the pole on the right up ahead.”

            Our end point was Pierce, Colorado, 5 miles south on U.S. Highway 85, but 30 miles as we shuttled back and forth along the county roads spaced on a 1-mile grid.

            Gary later sent me his bird list from the trip and even though Mark and I were only two cars behind him, he counted more raptors than we did:

Northern Harrier 2

Bald Eagle 2

Red-tailed Hawk 6

Rough-legged Hawk 4

Ferruginous Hawk 3

Great Horned Owl 4

American Kestrel 2

Prairie Falcon 3

We also documented rock pigeon, Eurasian collared-dove, black-billed magpie, horned lark, European starling and western meadowlark—14 of them!

            Gary frequently pulled over and jumped out of his trusty Subaru to train his spotting scope on a raptor in a lone treetop, on top of a utility pole or floating in the sky, giving everyone a chance to take a look. We may not have walked any miles, but we had plenty of exercise climbing in and out of our vehicles.

Gary Lefko (white shirt) points out a raptor perched on a utility pole in the distance to some of the birdwatchers following him on a tour of Raptor Alley near Nunn, Colorado, Feb. 19. Photo by Barb Gorges.

            Raptor Alley is Gary’s invention and the genesis can be traced back to his wife giving him a bird feeder nearly 25 years ago. He bought 14 more feeders, but what hooked him, made him go buy binoculars and a field guide, was seven Monk parakeets visiting his feeders. The feral, bright green, tropical birds made themselves at home in Colorado Springs for a while.

            Relocating to the outskirts of Nunn in 2002, Gary has now identified 135 bird species around his house. He’s also just a couple miles from the western border of Pawnee National Grassland, a 30 by 60-mile tract administered by the U.S. Forest Service that is famous in international birding circles.

            In some ways, Gary fits the stereotype of the birding loner, patrolling Weld County roads in search of avian rarities, but he also wants to spread the joy of birdwatching. When his mother told him years ago about the Florida birding trail, his first thought was, “Colorado needs one!”

            Birding trails, routes like Raptor Alley, are mapped with notes about accessibility, conditions and birding highlights. Modern versions are on the internet and who better than Gary, an IT professional and web designer, to provide it. He started out with a five-county area he called the Great Pikes Peak Birding Trail. I have a t-shirt from that iteration.

            It evolved into the Colorado Birding Trail, https://coloradobirdingtrail.com/, run by Colorado Parks and Wildlife. You can find “Raptor Alley” on the map, click on the link and get mile by mile directions and helpful hints like, “Be careful pulling onto the shoulder of roads, as many are soft and you could get stuck.”

            Gary has identified 23 raptor species hanging out there in the winter. Why there? Good prey base—lots of rodents, and lots of perches for watching for them.

            Along the way, Gary picked up graduate courses from Colorado State University in conservation communication and a certificate in non-profit administration. Gary’s project for his certificate involved a whole new venture, setting up the Friends of the Pawnee National Grassland, https://www.friendsofthepawneegrassland.org/.

            Part of that is an iNaturalist project to document the plants and wildlife, https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/birds-and-more-of-the-pawnee-national-grassland. iNaturalist is global, community-based science, a perfect fit for a man with a personal mission to bring people to nature.

            Gary is also on the Wildlife and Biological Resources Committee advocating for new approaches to energy development’s relation to biological resources and habitat. He also hosts four Christmas Bird Counts, three that he started and the one for Nunn that’s been going for 55 years.

            Thanks, Gary, for taking us to visit your birding “patch.”   

Bird feeding safety

A northern flicker enjoys pecking at a block of sunflower and millet seed. The block is also popular with downy woodpeckers, mountain chickadees and nuthatches. Photo by Mark Gorges.

Published Dec. 11, 2021, in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.

Bird feeding safety: clean feeders, cat fencing, glass obstruction

By Barb Gorges

            Winter is the most popular season for feeding birds. The Project Feederwatch season runs early November into April. See https://feederwatch.org/ to join anytime and add your sightings.

The Christmas Bird Count has a feeder-watching component too. See https://cheyenneaudubon.org/ to find out how to take part for free in the local count Dec. 18.

            Watching birds from your window is an entertaining and affordable, even educational hobby to lighten long winters. But please keep safety in mind.

Cleanliness

            Whether you choose a tube feeder, hopper feeder (looks like a little house), cage (for blocks of seed or suet) or platform feeder, make sure it is scrubbable.

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology recommends every two weeks taking feeders apart and brushing out all the detritus and washing them in a diluted bleach solution. You can use your dishwasher instead. Rinse feeders well and let dry thoroughly before refilling.

Wear gloves when handling dirty feeders or wash your hands afterwards.

Seed that gets wet can harbor mold and bird diseases. If you notice any finches with disfigured faces, it’s time to take down all your feeders for a week to temporarily disburse (social distance) the flock while you get them clean.

The one best seed—most nutritious and most popular—for our local seedeaters is black oil sunflower seed. But unless you can afford to buy hull-less, you will have moldering hulls below the feeder. If you feed one of the bird seed mixes, there are a lot of seeds in it our birds won’t eat, and they also end up making a kind of mat you’ll want to rake up regularly. At our house we hang the feeders over the patio and sweep often.

Finches like nyjer (“thistle” that doesn’t sprout) seed. It is very fine, requiring tube feeders with smaller holes or a fabric “sock.” The hulls are tiny and blow away. If you put out suet, make sure the weather is cold to keep it from going rancid—or dripping.

Downy woodpeckers are usually seen searching tree bark for dormant insects, but they also enjoy pecking at blocks of seed. The red spot on the back of its head indicates this is a male. Photo by Mark Gorges.

Window strikes

            Birds have a hard time identifying glass. They see the reflection of sky and vegetation, smack into your window and die or are severely injured, becoming a snack for other animals. Or if two of your windows on opposite sides of your house line up, they may think they can fly through.

            Your regular window screens can break the reflection and soften the impact. There are other strategies and stickers that can be stuck to the outside of the glass (see https://abcbirds.org/glass-collisions/stop-birds-hitting-windows/).

The easy strategy is to place your feeders within three feet of your favorite bird-watching window—or even stick a suction-cup feeder on the window itself. That way, when the sharp-shinned hawk startles your flock, none of them will be moving fast enough to hurt themselves bumping into the window.

Cats

            Our cats love bird-feeding season. They sit on the windowsill for hours, entranced. But if you haven’t made your felines into indoor cats yet like Lark and Lewis, please don’t feed the birds.

 What about the neighbors’ cats? That’s tricky. You might be able to convince neighbors that indoor cats are safer, healthier and more fun and that they could then take up bird feeding like you.

Realistically, you are going to have to cat-proof your birdfeeding station. While it is good to have cover, shrubs and trees, near your feeder so seed-eating birds can escape hawks, you don’t want it so close cats can pounce on birds feeding on the ground.

You might try encompassing the area under the feeder, where the birds feed on the ground, with a short fence—one you can step over. The idea is that while a cat can sneak up on a flock unobserved, having to leap the fence will give the birds the visual warning they need to escape.

Water

            Water is another way to attract birds–if you can keep your winter birdbath clean. It also has to stand up to freezing and thawing (unless you add a heater) and it needs to be easy to remove ice from or clean, like a flexible plastic trash can lid.

            Birds should be able to reach the water when perched on the rim. Or if there is a sloping edge or sloping rock, birds will also be able to walk in for a bath.

Squirrels

            Our fox squirrels are entertaining, but they can destroy birdfeeders and scarf down all your birdseed. We have a tube feeder that shuts down when any animal heavier than a finch sits on it.

            Funnel-shaped barriers can be mounted on the pole below a feeder and/or placed over the top of a feeder, especially one that is hanging. Our feeders hang from the underside of our patio roof.

            You can also distract squirrels by feeding them peanuts nearby.

A white-breasted nuthatch approaches a feeding port on a tube-type bird feeder. The weight of squirrels or big birds like starlings on the feeder pulls the cage down and the metal leaves block the ports. Photo by Mark Gorges.

Timing

            Decide how much seed you can afford. Put seed out at the times of day you are most likely to enjoy watching your feeder. Being consistent will bring the most visitors, but if your seed isn’t available, the flock will move on to one of their other regular daily stops.

More information

            The Feederwatch.org website is a fantastic free resource. You can find out what birds are seen in our area, each species’ favorite foods and the best types of feeders for each.

Great Backyard Bird Count and diversity thoughts

“Great Backyard Bird Count causes columnist to ponder diversity” was published Jan. 30, 2021, in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.

For the 2020 Great Backyard Bird Count, Mark Gorges, Cheyenne – High Plains Audubon Society member, set up his spotting scope for two young participants to get a close look at waterfowl on Sloans Lake in Lions Park. The waterfowl included Canada goose, northern shoveler, mallard and common goldeneye. Photo by Barb Gorges.

By Barb Gorges

            The Great Backyard Bird Count is coming up Feb. 12-15. You can now take part by watching and reporting the birds you see at your bird feeders—or anywhere in the world, aka the real Great Backyard!

            Now that the GBBC has gone global, it has a fresh website, https://www.birdcount.org/. Becca Rodomsky-Bish, with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, charged with its redesign, wanted comments from a small group of reviewers and I was invited. I have in the past contacted CLO for information about their programs for these columns and I’ve taken part in the GBBC since nearly the beginning.

            This is also the year that major environmental organizations are looking at their lack of diversity—both staff and outreach—because of incidents like Black birder Christian Cooper’s experience in Central Park, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Park_birdwatching_incident.

            I think CLO’s plan to invite GBBC participants around the world to submit photos of themselves and their families and friends birding during the event will do much to illustrate diversity.

            Normally, birders talk about bird species diversity and how to protect and improve it.

            To measure human diversity in the local birding community, we can look at our local Audubon chapter. This is what we see: participants in events, members and board members are evenly split between male and female. In photos from the chapter’s beginnings almost 50 years ago, it has always been like this. Human sexual orientation isn’t as visible and hasn’t come up during meetings and field trips.

            We usually have a diversity in age, at least between 50 and 90 years old with the occasional younger outlier. Mark and I were unusual, bringing our kids along on field trips starting when they were infants.

We’ve met teenagers occasionally who are into birds. But the lack of kids I think is more about how families choose to spend their limited time together. It’s when the kids leave home that parents finally look for new activities. In the 39 years I’ve been involved in Audubon chapters, we’ve never run out of people in the upper age bracket.

A few years ago, the chapter established a grant program for education and conservation projects in Laramie, Goshen and Platte counties. We’ve had several teachers successfully use our grants. Their students might be who will join when they are 50. But we could certainly use ideas and volunteers to help us reach more younger people.

Birding is adaptable for the disabled, though being able to see and/or hear a bird, however poorly, is rather necessary for birdwatching. No need to take a bird hike. A little black oil sunflower seed on the ground or in a feeder will help bring the birds in viewing range. You might start feeding the birds a couple weeks before the GBBC. 

What about socio economic diversity?

Birdwatching at its most basic doesn’t cost a thing. Birds are everywhere. You can check out a field guide from the public library. The CLO has many free resources online. I’m beginning to think of the internet as a public utility like water and everyone needs a device, a digital bucket, to capture some of the flow.

Old or cheap binoculars can be helpful, but not necessary for watching birds at a backyard feeder. Our local field trips are free and except during pandemics, carpooling is often available.

I’ve talked to people at every socio economic level who enjoy watching birds, whether it’s the flock that comes every afternoon for their black oil sunflower seed handout or the flock that flew over their tour group in some exotic location. Some birdwatchers tune in to backyard bird behavior, some strive to add to their global bird life list.

Birds attract people from all walks of life. However, there is a higher percentage of wildlife biologists among birders than in ordinary social circles. I’m happy to say over the years there is an increase in the percentage that are women.

Our Audubon chapter is not as racially diverse as Cheyenne. I’m not sure how to change that. We advertise our existence (www.cheyenneaudubon.wordpress.com) and wait for people who have made a connection to birds and who want to meet other bird-happy people and learn from each other and share sightings and support the well-being of birds (and other wildlife and people).

Many birders point to a “spark bird,” the bird they noticed and then wanted to find out more about, eventually finding more and more interesting birds—and finding they are all interesting birds.

Birds bring together all sorts of people. Let’s put on our binoculars as birdwatching badges, whatever quality they are, and find each other where the birds and birders gather. Maybe we’ll see each other outside during the Great Backyard Bird Count. 

Project FeederWatch brightens winter

Project FeederWatch brightens winter with backyard birds

White-breasted Nuthatch by Errol Traskin, courtesy Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

By Barb Gorges

            Nov. 14 marks the beginning of Mark’s and my 22nd season participating in Project FeederWatch. It’s a community/citizen science winter bird count endeavor started by Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Birds Canada back in 1987.

            It’s open to anyone, of any age, including classrooms, and of any expertise level, who is willing to put up a feeder and count the birds that visit and report them one to 21 times during the 21-week season. This year’s season ends April 9. Even if you don’t participate, there’s a wealth of free data, bird i.d. help and information about feeding birds available, https://feederwatch.org/ and fun stuff like the participants’ photo contests. 

            Here’s how Mark and I do it. Every year we update the description of our backyard—size doesn’t change but how many trees and shrubs may. We describe our birdbath and three bird feeders: sunflower seed tube, nyjer thistle seed tube and the cage that holds a block of pressed-together seed.

            For the two-day count period we choose Saturday and Sunday each week, even now that Mark is retired. There must be a minimum of 5 days between counts, so we stick with the same days each week—it’s easier to remember.

            We could print out an official tally sheet for each week, but we just use a scrap sheet of paper on the kitchen table. All our feeders, and the ground under them, are visible from the kitchen window.

            During the count we are looking for the largest number that can be seen at one time of each species—at the feeders and in our bushes and trees. We estimate snow depth and amount of time we watch. We don’t spend hours at the window. It’s less than one hour over the two days—checking as we walk by.

            By Sunday evening we can enter the count data online including any comments on bird interactions and observations of disease, and upload bird photos. There’s now a phone app for reporting counts too.

            It’s fun looking at our own data. CLO makes cool charts. I can see how the number of species and number of individuals changes during a season. I can compare all 21 seasons by species—back in 1999-2000, we were seeing goldfinches nearly every week, much less often in 2019-2000.

            Our yard’s landscaping has changed and matured. Over 1999-2000 we saw 12 species total. Over 2019-20, it was 21 species, though one week only one bird, a junco, was seen during the two-day count period.

            There were 20,000 participants last year, but only 27 in Wyoming, urban and rural. We could use more data to give scientists a more accurate view of our birds. Consider joining.

2019-20 FeederWatch Season:

25,679 participants

184,676 checklists

7,551,144 birds

Cornell Lab of Ornithology

            The participation fee of $18 ($15 for CLO members) funds nearly the entire endeavor, including mailing a research kit to first timers: instructions and bird i.d. poster. We all can opt for th e calendar, 16-page annual report and a digital subscription to Living Bird, a 70-page, full-color quarterly magazine normally available for the minimum $39 CLO membership fee.

            What will you see at your feeders? Here’s the list of the top 25 species based on the percentage of Wyoming participants reporting them last season:

Eurasian collared-dove 77

House finch 74

House sparrow 66

American goldfinch 66

Dark-eyed junco 66

Black-capped chickadee 66

American robin 59

European starling 55

Northern flicker 55

Red-breasted nuthatch 55

Downy woodpecker 48

Black-billed magpie 44

Blue jay 37

Mountain chickadee 37

Red-winged blackbird 33

American crow 33

Pine siskin* 33

Rosy finch species 25

Hairy woodpecker 25

Common raven 22

White-breasted nuthatch 22

Common grackle 22

Sharp-shinned hawk 22

Wild turkey 18

Song sparrow 18

*There’s an irruption of pine siskins this year because there isn’t a good seed crop in Canada. You may see more of them at your feeders.

House Finch by Maria Corcacas, courtesy Cornell Lab of Ornithology

            Here in Cheyenne we are unlikely to see wild turkeys or rosy finches, but the other species, and more, are all possible. If you go to Project FeederWatch’s “Common Feeder Birds Interactive,” https://feederwatch.org/learn/common-feeder-birds/, set it for “Northwest” and “Black oil sunflower seed” and you’ll find photos of most of our species. Click on each photo and discover what other kinds of food and feeders that species prefers.

            CLO has the free Merlin phone app for identifying birds. You answer simple questions about location, size, color, behavior and habitat for your unknown bird and it shows you photos of possible birds.

            For each species, CLO’s All About Birds website, https://www.allaboutbirds.org/, will give you multiple photos, sound recordings, range map, habitat, food, nesting, behavior information, conservation status, cool facts, backyard tips and their names in both Spanish and French.

            I hope you’ll join Project FeederWatch this winter with me and Mark. It is one of the things I like about winter.  

Wyobirds and Wyoming Master Naturalists updates

Cheyenne Audubon field trip to the Wyoming Hereford Ranch, November 2019. Photo by Barb Gorges.

Published Feb. 16, 2020, Wyoming Tribune Eagle, “Wyobirds gets tech update and Wyoming Master Naturalists  gets initial discussion.”

By Barb Gorges

            Technology drives changes in the birding community as it does for the rest of the world. We always wonder how hard it will be to adapt to the inevitable.

            In January, the folks at Murie Audubon, the National Audubon Society chapter in Casper, announced that they would no longer pay the fees required for hosting the Wyobirds elist. There have been plenty of donations over the years to offset the $500 per year cost but, they reasoned, now that there is a no-cost alternative, why not spend the money on say, bird habitat protection or improvement? Also, the new option allows photos and the old one didn’t.

            But the new outlet for chatting about birds in Wyoming works a little differently and everyone will have to get used to it. We’ve changed before. We had the Wyoming Bird Hotline until 2006 for publicizing rare bird alerts only. No one called in about their less than rare backyard birds, their birding questions and birding related events like they do now on Wyobirds.

            The only problem with leaving the listserv is figuring out what to do with the digital archives. They may go back to 2004, the first time Wyobirds was mentioned in Cheyenne Audubon’s newsletter.

            Now the Wyoming birding community, and all the travelers interested in coming to see Wyoming birds, can subscribe to Wyobirds (no donations necessary) by going to Google Groups, https://groups.google.com/, and searching for “Wyobirds.” Follow the directions for how to join the group so that you can post and get emails when other group members post. I opted to get one email per day listing all the postings. That will be nice when spring migration begins and there are multiple posts each day.

            Google Groups, a free service from Google, is one way the giant company gives back and we might as well take advantage of it.

Wyoming Master Naturalists

            Wyoming is one of only five states that does not have a Master Naturalist program, however it’s in the discussion stage.

            What is a Master Naturalist and what do they do? Jacelyn Downey, education programs manager for Audubon Rockies who is based near Gillette, explained at the January Cheyenne Audubon meeting that programs are different in each state.

            Most are like the Master Gardener program, offering training and certification. Master naturalists serve by taking on interpretive or educational roles or helping with conservation projects or collecting scientific data. The training requires a certain number of hours and keeping up certification requires hours of continuing education and service. But it’s not a chore if you love nature.

            Master Gardeners is organized in the U.S. through the university extension program. Some Master Naturalist programs are too, as well as through state game and fish or parks departments or Audubon offices or other conservation organizations or partnerships of organizations and agencies.

            Colorado has at least two programs, one through Denver Audubon, and another in Ft. Collins to aid users of the city’s extensive natural areas.

            Dorothy Tuthill also spoke. She is associate director and education coordinator for the University of Wyoming Biodiversity Institute. She pointed out that several of their programs, like the Moose Day surveys in which “community scientists” (another term for people participating in citizen science) gather data, are the kinds of activities a Master Naturalist program could aid.

            Audubon and the institute already collaborate every year with other organizations and agencies on the annual Wyoming Bioblitz. It’s one day during which scientists, volunteers, teachers, families and kids together gather data on flora and fauna in a designated area. This year’s Bioblitz will be July 17-19 near Sheridan on the Quarter Circle A Ranch, the grounds of the Brinton Museum.

            With a Wyoming Master Naturalist program, a trained corps of naturalists could be available to help agencies and organizations by visiting classrooms, leading hikes, giving programs and helping to plan and participating in projects and surveys.

            Audubon chapter volunteers are already involved in these kinds of things: adult and child education, data collection on field trips and conservation projects. Many of us might broaden our nature expertise beyond birds and learn more about connecting people to nature. But it would be nice to wear a badge that guarantees for the public that we know what we are talking about.

            Just how a Wyoming Naturalist Program would be set up is being discussed right now. Maybe a Google Group needs to be formed. If you’d like to be in on the discussion, please contact Dorothy Tuthill at dtuthill@uwyo.edu and Jacelyn Downey at jdowney@audubon.org.