The National Audubon Society report of the 112th Christmas Bird count came the other day, just in time to start preparing for the 113th one. So I thought I would look through it before starting the publicity for this year's Alberni Valley Christmas Bird Count.
Some interesting statistics jumped out at me. For instance, of all the counts all over the western hemisphere from Baffin Island to Ecuador, the count that had the most participants was Edmonton! In fact three of the top five counts were Canadian with Victoria and Calgary coming in 4th and 5th. And thanks to the Central and South American counts, almost 2,300 species were counted. That's almost a quarter of the species in existence!
British Columbia's participation was second only to Ontario in Canada, but was first in the number of species counted, with 228. This is thanks to the varied climatic conditions here and the presence of the ocean. Vancouver Island is represented with 11 counts out of a total for  BC of 90.  And with this small number of counts, the island came up with 70% of the bird species.
It's amazing how exceptionally rare bird pop up on these counts. A Costa's Hummingbird stuck around an entire year to be counted for the second year in a row in Vancouver! This bird normally lives in the Baja, Mexico and into southern Arizona. And a couple in Nova Scotia thought they would stop for a break in tiny Barrington Passage when they noticed an unusual bird below the drive-through speaker. It turned out to be a Lazuli Bunting, a bird that occurs west of Southern Manitoba in the summer, but should have been in western Mexico. So there's always a chance you might find something fantastic.
The Port Alberni Count area is big! There is no way we can count all the birds within the area, or even cover the area reasonably well. That's why we keep track of the time we spend counting and the distance we travel. Then you can get a birds/hr, or birds/km statistic.
Typically, well over half of our participants count birds at their feeders. And the others are intrepid souls who brave the elements, no matter what the weather throws at them! These folks are formed into teams, given areas within the count circle to count, and they venture out armed with bird books, binoculars, notebooks and pencils and perhaps a spotting scope too.
The event has become a Christmas Tradition over the past 20 years. The same faces come back year after year whether they are counting at feeders or roughing it in the field. And we all gather in the evening at the Golden Dragon Restaurant for a little feast and tall tale telling. Everyone has a story to tell. If you would like to be part of this you would be very welcome indeed. It would help if you have a little knowledge of the birds and a pair of binoculars. Okay, it's pretty well required!
Our count is on Sunday the 30th of December 2012.
For more details, drop me a line at [email protected].
Sandy McRuer