Seconds after I turned off Juliette Street onto Holly Grove Street, Christmas Chook Depend workforce member Ron Lee exclaimed, “Cease the Automobile!” I pulled to a cease as he directed my consideration to the unmistakable silhouette of an amazing horned owl perched atop the leafless limbs of a close-by tree.
I checked the time on my 4 Runner’s clock; it was 7:10 am – The 2022 Christmas Chook Depend had begun in a dramatic vogue.
The 2022 Piedmont Nationwide Wildlife Refuge/Rum Creek Wildlife Administration Space Christmas Chook Depend was held Monday, Dec. 19. That is the 51st time the rely has been held right here. This additionally marked the 123rd consecutive 12 months the Christmas Chook Depend (CBC) has been staged. This has earned the survey the title of being the longest-running wildlife survey in your entire world.
Every rely takes place inside the identical geographic space every year. Every rely circle measures 15 miles in diameter. The Piedmont NWR/Rum Creek WMA rely circle consists of all the Rum Creek Wildlife Administration and Piedmont Nationwide Wildlife Refuge in addition to a sliver of the Oconee Nationwide Forest, and vital parts of jap Monroe and western Jones Counties.
Volunteers are charged with the daunting process of finding and figuring out as many birds as attainable inside a single calendar day.
Counts are held whatever the climate. Consequently, climate circumstances play a key function within the consequence of every rely effort. Final 12 months the rely groups needed to deal with circumstances that many contributors later described because the worst they’ve ever skilled on a rely.
Luckily, this 12 months, circumstances had been excellent. After a chilly begin, largely clear skies, little wind and temperatures that reached into the 50s prevailed.
The 2022 Christmas Chook Depend workforce was made up of 13 volunteers divided into 5 teams. 4 groups had been assigned to cowl that portion of the rely circle east of the Ocmulgee River. One workforce was given the accountability of surveying the Rum Creek WMA and the remainder of jap Monroe County.
After strolling and driving via as a lot of the rely circle as attainable, rely efforts yielded 4,801 birds representing 89 species. As compared, in 2021, solely 2599 birds and 75 species had been seen. These figures signify roughly an 18 % enhance in species seen and 85 % extra particular person birds situated than final 12 months.
This 12 months’s outcomes ended a six-year downward spiral throughout which fewer species had been noticed than the earlier 12 months. Nonetheless, it marked the fourth consecutive 12 months {that a} rely yielded lower than 90 species.
Remarkably, despite seeing way more birds than we did final 12 months, just one species abundance report was damaged. Since 2003, the report for essentially the most barred owls seen on a rely stood at 5. The full was tied in 2007, 2013, and 2017. This 12 months a brand new report of six barred owls had been noticed.
Topping the checklist of the ten species of birds most frequently seen through the 2022 rely was the red-winged blackbird (559). The 9 species rounding out the checklist had been (in descending order), chipping sparrow (337), American robin (333), ring-necked duck (305), American Coot (250), white-throated Sparrow (176), American crow (146), American Goldfinch (113), brown-headed cowbird, and blue jay (104).
When an space is surveyed for over half a century, it’s tough so as to add a brand new species to the checklist of birds seen. Nonetheless, this 12 months a brand new fowl was sighted. Simply because the solar was starting to rise, the Monroe County workforce noticed what seemed to be a double-crested cormorant shrouded in fog perched atop a useless snag just a few toes above the icy waters of Lake Juliette. When the day started to brighten, we had been in a position to see the fowl was an anhinga and never a cormorant. This odd, slender waterbird is never seen outdoors of the Coastal Plain. This weird, giant, sharp-billed fowl grew to become the a hundred and sixtieth species seen within the historical past of the rely.
On the opposite aspect of the Ocmulgee River, simply as one of many rely groups was on the brink of head dwelling; they noticed a Merlin. This small falcon nests all through a lot of Canada and the northwestern United States and winters all through the western United States and the Atlantic Coast.
We hardly ever see the fast-flying raptor on this a part of Georgia. The final time it was seen on the rely was 2009.
What a becoming approach to finish an amazing day!
If you want a duplicate of the ultimate report of this 12 months’s Christmas Chook Depend, please let me know.
Terry Johnson is retired Program Supervisor of the Georgia Nongame-Endangered Wildlife Program. He has written the informative column ‘Monroe Outdoor’ for the Reporter for a few years. His guide by him, “A Journey to Discovery,” is obtainable at The Reporter. E-mail him at tjwoodduck@bellsouth.internet.
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