Not even a pandemic could stop one of the country's longest-running citizen science projects, at least locally.
The Norwich group held its census as part of the National Audubon Society's 121st Christmas Bird Count on Dec. 27, sending out small teams to count individuals and species found in wild habitats, parks and backyards. Over time, the counts, which are conducted between Dec. 14 and Jan. 5, have been used to track and assess the health and location of bird populations throughout the Americas.
"For me, the Audubon Christmas Bird Count is such a staple," said Allison Black, who started the Norwich group last year. "To be able to do this safely is really great, and it's definitely possible. I think that's one of the great things about birding is that it can be as isolating or as social as you want it to be."
A Norwich native, she said she noticed a lack of bird population data in the inland areas of southeastern Connecticut, and a CBC-style trial run a few years ago found about 70 species in the greater Norwich area. She recently moved to South Carolina to work as a wildlife biologist for the Department of Natural Resources, but she and her husband came back for holidays with the family and this year's count.
Because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Audubon gave groups the option to cancel their counts this year or abide by a list of safety requirements. If groups elected to go forward with their count and were permitted to do so per local regulations, team members couldn't carpool unless they were already in the same isolation pod, everyone had to wear masks throughout the count, and the final compilation meeting for the group had to be held virtually.
Team leaders met via Zoom Thursday night to review and tally their finds, a far cry from last year's post-count feast and compilation meeting at Infinity Palace, which Black said she hopes becomes a tradition. She went down the list in her screen-shared spreadsheet, which included the species they found last year and columns for each of the five teams, as she added up everyone's finds. She also highlighted a few surprise misses that they normally have, including wild turkeys, peregrine falcons and great blue herons.
The teams found a total of 77 species within the 15-mile-diameter circle, centered on Norwich and spanning from Ledyard and Montville to Griswold and Sprague. High counts abounded for the usual local birds, including Canada geese, mallards, black-capped chickadees and northern cardinals. Black noted that it was a good count for sightings of raptors, winter wrens and great black-backed gulls, and the team covering the southern end of the circle also found a dark-eyed junco from a subspecies native to the western U.S.
Pat Tamborra, a Norwich native now living in Salem and a longtime birder, covered the center of the circle and surveyed the greater city area with John Bean. He said it was a little unwieldy having to drive to each location in two different cars, but together they counted in popular bird habitats such as Mohegan Park, Uncas Leap and Lothrope Meadow.
He said Bean was a great birding partner because even though he's newer to the hobby, he could find the birds and then Tamborra could identify them. Bean also lives in a part of Norwich that Tamborra previously couldn't do much counting in because there are no parks or public lands, so they also counted at his feeders.
"We found all six of the woodpeckers that you could expect to see in Connecticut at this time of year. John didn't even know that a couple of them were coming to his house," he said. They had counted five of the six species — red-headed, red-bellied, hairy, downy, and yellow-bellied sapsucker — when he heard a pileated woodpecker nearby that then flew into the yard.
For Tamborra, the highlight of the day was finding two red crossbills, which normally live in the boreal forests of Canada. He and Black noted that this is an irruption year for crossbills and other finches from that area as they travel farther south than normal in search of food. The group also found a white-winged crossbill and a few evening grosbeaks and common redpolls.
"There are some incredible species from up north coming down and showing up at people's feeders, and if you ever wanted to see a boreal species without having to actually go there, this is the year to do it," Black said.
"A lot of people have bird feeders and they're interested in birds, but they don't know what's out there," Tamborra said, adding that local birders are often willing to help. "You can download an app like eBird and start putting information in, and it would make all of these things easier and more meaningful to get more data."
For more information about the Christmas Bird Count, visit https://www.audubon.org/conservation/science/christmas-bird-count.
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