The 2024 Christmas Bird Count

Report by Glenn Dreger

On December 14^th, the 2024 Kamloops Christmas Bird Count was conducted by 43 of our members divided into 21 groups with 3 more members on feeder watches. Temperatures were mild and winds were light.  A total of 8,472 individual birds were counted representing 72 species. The official CBC count will be 70, as 2 of the species seen were not in the count window time. They are recorded but not as part of the CBC. The 2 species were a Great-horned Owl recorded by Bill Gilroy and 50 Snow Buntings recorded by Darrel Frolek. 

The participants spent 73 hours on foot and 31 hours driving, covering 106 km on foot and 378 km by vehicle.

It appears that we are on the low end of counts over the past years. Counts of 77 species and over 13,000 individuals have been made, although 70 to 74 species is more usual with 10,000 birds counted.

It has been a very mild year so far, which could explain some lower numbers. We usually count Bohemian Waxwings in the thousands, this year there were only 19 counted. No Redpolls, Crossbills or Brewer’s Blackbirds were seen.

Overall, I think our crew did an excellent job and our count is as should be expected for this year.

These are the birds we found. Photo gallery will be in a separate post.