Snake Valley Christmas Bird Count Breaks Record

This article was originally published in The Midden - Great Basin National Park: Vol 24., No.1, Summer 2024.

Horned Larks are one of the more common birds in Christmas Bird Counts.

David Layton

By Gretchen Baker, Ecologist

The Christmas Bird Count (CBC) is the longest running community science project in the world, starting in 1900. Each year, between December 15 and January 5, birders gather to count birds in a 15-mile diameter count circle.

Over the years, many CBC circles have been established, with one started in 1996 by Melissa Renfro in Snake Valley. This count circle includes parts of Great Basin National Park (particularly the Lehman, Baker, Kious Basin, and Snake drainages), the towns of Baker and Garrison, Pruess Lake, and other nearby lands.

The 2023 Snake Valley CBC was held on December 15, with 19 all-day participants and several partial-day participants. This was our highest participation in the 28 years it’s been held! A big thanks to all the volunteers who helped park staff, as well as our partners from Nevada Department of Wildlife, Bureau of Land Management, Great Basin National Park Foundation, Eastern Nevada Land Coalition, and West Consultants. Thanks also to Western National Parks Association, who provided snacks.

Pinyon jays are found in large flocks and often make a lot of noise.

John Dickson.

During the day, participants went out in teams on eight different routes to look and listen for what birds were there. A total of 3,702 birds were noted on count day. That's up from the past eight years and right about average for the Snake Valley CBCs (some years have had huge counts of mallards and horned larks). This brings our grand total for all years combined to 102,360 birds!

So many eyes out in the field led to our largest number of species ever, 64! Wow! There were lots of great sightings, including two that haven't ever been seen on our CBC: Say's Phoebe (hanging out around the resource building, where it nests in summer), and California Scrub-Jays (way up Big Wash). We also had some fun birds that we rarely see, including a snow goose, tundra swans, golden-crowned kinglets, merlin, and more. We also had some sightings that can be hard to get, like gadwall, Clark's nutcracker, western bluebird, white-breasted nuthatch, red-naped sapsucker, ruby-crowned kinglets, Cooper's hawk, mourning dove, common merganser, belted kingfisher, and prairie falcon.

Canada Geese are frequently seen on Christmas Bird Counts, but this Snow Goose was a surprise visitor!

Joey Danielson

Do you ever wonder what birds are around in the winter consistently? These bird species have been counted for at least 27 of the 28 last counts: Mallard, Golden Eagle, Red-tailed Hawk, Rough-legged Hawk, Great Horned Owl, Northern Flicker, Pinyon Jay, Woodhouse’s Scrub-Jay, Black-billed Magpie, Common Raven, Horned Lark, Mountain Chickadee, Townsend’s Solitaire, European Starling, Dark-eyed Junco, Song Sparrow, Brewer’s Blackbird, American Goldfinch, and House Sparrow.

CBCs are held all over the U.S. and also in some other countries. If you’d like to participate or learn more, visit Audubon’s Christmas Bird Count site. Here’s hoping we can continue this tradition of learning about winter birds. Thanks so much to all who have helped with the Snake Valley CBC over the years!