Fourth Christmas Bird Count - December 17, 2006
Buffalo Creek IBA-80, Washington County
By Larry Helgerman, CBC Compiler and IBA-80 Coordinator

It's February and the 107th Christmas bird counts held between December 14, 2006 and January 5, 2007 are now history. This was a historic year for the Buffalo Creek Watershed IBA-80 Washington County, as this was the year our Christmas Bird Count became official! With three trial years under our belts I thought it was time to try to make our count part of the National Audubon official North American Count. This would not be as easy a feat as I first thought. With very strict criteria, circles are not given out without plenty of details such as precise GPS center, buffer zone's between adjoining circles, trial year records, habitats, and winter species. By the time our count came on December 17th, after months of correspondence, I still did not know if we would be counted Nationally!

The count weekend: the day of the week on which the Holidays land can make a difference on CBC dates. This year a lot of counts were on the 16th and 17th. So many counts so little time, one can only be in one place at one time - or can they? One can only do one count a weekend - or can they? Well Mary Grey and I proved that wrong. Saturday morning the 16th we were down in Enlow Fork IBA-14 participating in the Ryerson Station Count. After birding until lunch, we crossed the state line into West Virginia helping the Brooks Bird Club count birds in the Wheeling Circle till dark! Then it was home for a hot meal, work on maps and details till 11:00pm, off to bed and up the next morning. We were meeting 34 participants at 7:15am for the IBA-80 count! I don't know what we were running on but we birded till 5:15pm Sunday.

The Count: What a day, with a low of 40 degrees and a high of 60, winds light and overcast. Good for birders but would it be good for finding birds? This year we had more participants (good weather tends to help) than in past years and we covered more area. We broke our past CBC records with 66 species, up from 59. The fun part of being a CBC compiler is seeing the bird reports as they come in. Our tradition has been to meet back (if possible) for lunch at the Greencove Wetland, our base camp. Most groups put in morning counts only. As the checklists started coming in from our 15 field groups a feel for the count was starting. Some of the wintering sparrow species were low as it's been a warm fall and early winter, but the numbers were looking good. People were coming back with smiles on their faces. Good birds were being seen and the groups all seemed to be having fun, an important part of a CBC!

Highlights for people as well as birds: Everyone did a great job! Walt and Dana Shaffer get my award for most time in the field. They are always willing to go the extra mile! Besides getting owls, they had a lot of other birds, including the Peregrine Falcon, which was a first for the IBA! Kate St. John joined Kathy Saunders in the morning birding rural back roads. Kathy, another trooper, went to a private 50 acre native tree farm in the afternoon and returned to bird with me late afternoon. She really helps. Fran and Dan O'Malley did another count on Saturday and still came down and hiked for miles as they have in past years, adding some of the Winter Wrens. Mark Bowers and Loree Speedy Bowers came down from Westmoreland County and were one of several groups to see the first Ravens! Bob Machesney and Ryan Tomazin again worked the drained Dutch Fork Lake basin, miles of weedy sparrow habitat. Mike and Judy Campsey, Cassie Campsey, Lou Reynolds and Kathy Patnode residents of the watershed counted in the field and at their feeders. Amy and Jarred Taracido year after year take on a huge area and always do great, this year adding the only Meadowlark. Marjorie and Jerry Howard traversed the Greencove area. Carol and Fred McCullough, who were in the scrub of sector 7, again came up with most of the White-Crowned Sparrows, a signature winter bird here. Jack and Valerie Baker tackled a western sector while Melanie Claus and Lauren Conkle took on a southern territory with both groups picking up good birds. Thais Tepper and her son Drue, a very knowledgeable teenage birder, Cathy Skidmore and Frank Danyo, newer birders, came down and helped out. John Oleyer and Ellen Hamill came with Mary Grey and myself as we took on a couple sectors. Our bird of the day was the very cooperative first year male Brewers Blackbird, feeding in corn stubble then flying up to a branch right in front of us all at no-binocular-needed range! Well I guess I have to say Ross Gallarty and Tommy Byrnes won the Grand Pupa! While DRIVING Ross spotted an OVENBIRD and was able to jump out and snap a couple photo's! While rarities are lot's of fun to find, CBC's are mostly about the normal species and how are they fairing. I don't want to forget to mention a few other private property and feeder watchers, David Scofield and family (Meadowcroft Village), Joan and Bob Daley, Ted and June Flickinger and last but not least Diane Scott who lives in Taylorstown she has helped on every count and every year adds a species or two to our list. This year she found 4 Killdeer which were the only one's reported, showing the importance of feeder watchers on a CBC!

Thanks to everyone who helped on the count as it would not have been successful without all of you! Thanks to Scott Albaugh compiler of the Wheeling Circle for working with National Audubon in adjusting their circle to make ours fit between it and Washington's. Thanks to PA Audubon's Kim Van Fleet for all her efforts. Thanks to the Buffalo Creek Watershed Association for contributing the funds to help pay for field participants on IBA-80's inaugural National Christmas Bird Count.

P.S. On December 31, 2006 Mary Grey and I participated in our fourth CBC of the year in Southport NC. This is a great area and count. I believe they totaled out at 166 species. Greg Massey is the compiler and does a very nice job. One of the species we found, Pintails, were the only one's found adding to their total list. We had a great day and lots of fun in new territory, I mention this to remind folks, if your Holidays take you to somewhere other than home CBC's are everywhere and birders are always welcome to join counts!

Species List (Total Species = 66) (Total birds = 4644):

Canada Goose xx Canada Goose (75) American Black Duck (5) Mallard (19) Ring-necked Pheasant (7) Ruffed Grouse (1) Wild Turkey (48) Killdeer (4) Northern Bobwhite (1) Great Blue Heron (6) Turkey Vulture (2) Cooper's Hawk (4) Red-tailed Hawk (52) American Kestrel (14) Peregrine Falcon (1) Rock Pigeon (107) Mourning Dove (149) Eastern Screech-Owl (33) Great Horned Owl (3) Barred Owl (2) Belted Kingfisher (15) Red-bellied Woodpecker (96) Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (4) Downy Woodpecker (160) Hairy Woodpecker (32) Northern Flicker (53) Pileated Woodpecker (33) Eastern Phoebe (2) Blue Jay (105) American Crow (635) Common Raven (4) Horned Lark (10) Carolina Chickadee (379) Black-capped Chickadee (1) Tufted Titmouse (162) Red-breasted Nuthatch (2)

White-breasted Nuthatch (155) Brown Creeper (25) Carolina Wren (142) Winter Wren (4) Golden-crowned Kinglet (88) Ruby-crowned Kinglet (4) Eastern Bluebird (115) American Robin (39) Northern Mockingbird (28) European Starling (457) Cedar Waxwing (6) Yellow-rumped Warbler (3) Ovenbird (1) Eastern Towhee (6) American Tree Sparrow (72) Field Sparrow (6) Fox Sparrow (1) Song Sparrow (189) Swamp Sparrow (7) White-throated Sparrow (48) White-crowned Sparrow (42) Dark-eyed Junco (149) Northern Cardinal (238) Red-winged Blackbird (7) Eastern Meadowlark (1) Brewer's Blackbird (1) Common Grackle (1) Brown-headed Cowbird (51) House Finch (65) American Goldfinch (155) House Sparrow (290) Unidentified Passerine (16) Unidentified Woodpecker (5) Unidentified Accipiter (1)