The Audobin Society has been holding Christmas Bird Counts across North America for the past 125 years.

On Cortes Island it is co-sponsored by the Cortes Island Museum and Birds Canada. Thirty-nine walkers, cyclists, boaters, and people in cars participated in the Cortes Island 2024 Christmas Bird Count. This was the third time that more than 4,000 birds have been counted since the islands first Christmas Bird Count in 2001. A new record was set: 4,545 Birds were listed.

Donna Collins explained, “We had more birders out, more areas covered and lots of birds counted.”

 The most numerous species were 1,057 Surf Scoters. 

 There were several unusual sightings.

Laurel Bohart reported, “Chipping sparrows should not have been here, but I walked a little ways up Basil Creek, just to see if there were any remains of any fish, and spotted two Chipping sparrows. They should not be here at this time of year. These are accidentals from who knows where farther east and farther south.”

Donna Collins: “Not surprising since we’ve had some of those storms, with the high winds that tends to blow birds off their courses.”

This is the first time Ring-billed gulls have been listed in a Christmas count. Laurel Bohart counted 32. Turkey vultures are not usually seen this time of year. One was seen during the week in 2014, but it did not make it into the official count. Sierra Sullivan saw a Turkey vulture this year.  Michael Sullivan saw three American coots.  

Laurel Bohart and Donna Collins agreed to describe their experience of the day.   

Laurel Bohart: “Donna showed up at my place in Squirrel Cove. I had already looked at the birds on my feeder, which were maybe 12 Juncos. We went directly to the dump  to check on birds there  and spotted 6 Ravens. Of course, they’re always there when the dump is open because of food. Along with them, there were some wrens.”  

Donna Collins: “We were having a hard time because we could hear them, but couldn’t see them.”

Laurel Bohart: “It’s hard to see them because they were lurking in the bush. We spent some time just on the driveway, in and out of the Cortes Recycling Centre.  Unfortunately my binoculars aren’t very good and her eyes are better than mine and sharper. So she was just describing what they might be.  We had the bird book with us and were frantically looking through the pages.”  

“We saw a whole cloud of Pine Siskins.”  

Cortes Currents: Can either of you recognize the birds by their sounds?  

Laurel Bohart: “A Wren’s like ‘chik chik, chik chik, chik chik, chiche, chik, chik, chiche, chik,  chik.’ That’s the alarm call.”  

“The other calls were more a mingled sound,  kind of a high pitched ‘we wi wi wi  wi  wi.’”  

Cortes Currents: What was that? 

Laurel Bohart: “That would be birds higher up in the trees and no, I couldn’t really tell which ones they were. I could hear them, although my hearing aid is not perfect.”

“The  adventure came  first of all, when we went down to the waterfront by the Squirrel Cove store.” 

“I have never seen so many gulls in my life. The gulls were Glaucus-winged Gulls mostly.  There was one Mew gull, one Bonaparte’s and a bunch of Ring billed gulls,  all splashing very happily right around, right in the creek’s mouth and making a great deal of noise.”

“What was happening was the gush of water out of the Basil Creek estuary was fanning farther out into the ocean. Behind that fan, where all the birds were in front, there were sea lions or seals. We had a line of a couple dozen Bufflehead ducks cleaning their feathers in the fresh water. There were Goldeneye ducks, I think there was four. There was a whole line of Surf Scoters, at least a dozen.”  

“What caught our attention was the crows between there and the Klahoose First Nation.”

Cortes Currents: In the final tally it says you saw 89 crows. Do you have any explanation for that number?  

Laurel Bohart: “The only reason I can think of would be food.  My guess is they’re still looking for carcasses of fish because those will have washed up to sea and they come back in with the tide.  Probably more fish  washing down Basil Creek. Crows are very good at picking tiny morsels of decaying flesh off fish skeletons.”

Donna Collins: “There was one right on the grass at Klahoose.”

Laurel Bohart: “If there’s crustaceans that wash up and remains of shellfish from shellfish farms, or anything that’s flying across and falls into the water,  dies and washes up on the shore: Nature’s cleanup crew is right there. And that includes the gulls.”

“As for eagles, do you remember how many?”  

Donna Collins: “There were three in the trees, one mature and two immatures.”

Laurel Bohart: “One of those eagles,  the immature with all the white on its chest, flew over to Klahoose and landed on a rooftop right by the water.   Donna took pictures of that later on. A First Nations woman took pictures and her caption was, this Eagle is carrying the Klahoose colours.”

Cortes Currents: What are the Klahoose colours? 

Laurel Bohart: “White and cream, I think, and beige and black.  

“So the chest was mottled with all these shades and the head almost had a golden eagle look,  kind of a golden crown. It was not a golden eagle, I checked that out right away becasue golden eagles are feathered to the toes and bald eagles are feathered halfway down the lower leg before the toes.  It was definitely a young one,  and seemed to be quite okay with being photographed.”

“There are also probably about a dozen Starlings  that we saw  at Klahoose, and starlings tend to be naturalized to lawns. These are birds that were taken from England and dropped off in New York a number of hundred years ago with the British settlers.”

 “We went down to the waterfront behind Squirrel Cove, and we saw more Pelagic cormorants, Common Loons,  Bufflehead ducks and four Goldeneye ducks.” 

“We went up the road to Blue Jay Lake.  Levi took us around and we went through the woods.” 

Donna Collins: “He said, ‘Oh, I can get you closer.’ He took us into an area where we could see  part of the lake and the marsh area much better.  We normally wouldn’t feel comfortable going in there on our own but, because it was Levi, we went in.  He has a good set of eyes and he’s a pretty good birder.”

“One of the areas we went through was an old orchard and there must have been how many Flickers?  Oh, probably 20 of them.  They were all in the trees, and of course, when we walked up, whoosh, off they go. All you could see was  these red wings from underneath because they have those bands.”

Laurel Bohart: “Two Steller’s jays. There was a whole cloud of  Pine Siskins. Anywhere from 20 to 60. I couldn’t count them because they kept moving.”

“The fascinating part was those ducks.  We were having trouble identifying them. I can’t remember their names. They’re related to Scot ducks and they like fresh water. There were three of them and we couldn’t remember ever seeing them before.”  

(*She later emailed they were Ring-necked ducks.)

Laurel Bohart: “We had quite a day.”  

Donna Collins: “What time did we finish?”

Laurel Bohart: “We went from 10 AM until 4 PM.” 

Cortes Currents: Did you notice any changes from last year?  

Laurel Bohart: “Yes, there were no Oystercatchers at all, anywhere. No Great Blue Herons either.”

These were observations specific to the Squirrel Cove area. There were 11 Great Blue Herons and 125 Oystercatches reported in this year’s count, but none of them were seen in Laurel and Donna’s area. 

Laurel Bohart: “There were a lot more ducks than last year, I thought, but different species. Morganser, we saw one or two. We saw a Pelagic cormorant. There were a number of Loons.”

Links of Interest:

• Audubon Christmas Bird Count – Audubon society
• Index Page for Bird Counts at the Cortes Island Museum
• Cortes Island Christmas Bird Counts – Cortes Currents
• Cortes Island Spring Bird Counts – Cortes Currents
• Birds are smarter than you think – Cortes Currents

All undesignated Images by Donna Collins; Top image credit: Immature Bald eagle

Corrections: (1) While there have been Chipping sparrows sightings on Cortes Island, they are few and have not previously been at this time of the year. This has resulted in some discussion about whether to accept Laurel’s sighting in the Christmas Day Count. The Museum decided to include it. I have made several corrections to this passage, during the discussions, in order to keep my text and audio relevant. (2) The paragraph about Ring-necked ducks was edited down after it became apparent they have been in most previous Christmas Counts.

Sign-up for Cortes Currents email-out:

To receive an emailed catalogue of articles on Cortes Currents, send a (blank) email to subscribe to your desired frequency:

Weekly Digest cortescurrents – cortescurrents-weekly+subscribe@cortes.groups.io

Daily, (articles posted during the last 24 hours) – cortescurrents-daily+subscribe@cortes.groups.io