Christmas Bird Count Results
The 2024 Christmas Bird Count
Report by Glenn Dreger
On December 14th, 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.
| Snow Goose | 1 | American Kestrel | 7 | |
| Canada Goose | 3221 | Merlin | 6 | |
| Trumpeter Swan | 8 | Northern Shrike | 3 | |
| Tundra Swan | 18 | Steller’s Jay | 8 | |
| Gadwal | 1 | Black-billed Magpie | 146 | |
| American Wigeon | 3 | Clark’s Nutcracker | 10 | |
| Mallard | 504 | American Crow | 289 | |
| Northern Shoveller | 37 | Common Raven | 113 | |
| Green-winged Teal | 10 | Horned Lark | 20 | |
| Ring-necked Duck | 13 | Black-capped Chickadee | 92 | |
| Redhead | 2 | Mountain Chickadee | 103 | |
| Scaup (sp) | 70 | Red-breasted Nuthatch | 14 | |
| Bufflehead | 18 | White-breasted Nuthatch | 9 | |
| Common Goldeneye | 4 | Pygmy Nuthatch | 19 | |
| Barrow’s Goldeneye | 80 | Townsend’s Solitaire | 12 | |
| Hooded Merganser | 11 | Great-horned Owl (CW) | 1 | |
| Common Merganser | 11 | Northern Pygmy Owl | 5 | |
| Chukar | 5 | American Robin | 301 | |
| Ruffed Grouse | 3 | European Starling | 1082 | |
| Sharp-tailed Grouse | 2 | Bohemian Waxwing | 19 | |
| Common Loon | 2 | Dark-eyed Junco Oregon | 188 | |
| Ring-billed Gull | 355 | Dark-eyed Junco Slate | 7 | |
| Herring Gull | 6 | House Sparrow | 204 | |
| Great Blue Heron | 1 | White-throated Sparrow | 1 | |
| Northern Harrier | 3 | White-crowned Sparrow | 15 | |
| Sharp-shinned Hawk | 3 | Song Sparrow | 26 | |
| Cooper’s Hawk | 2 | Spotted Towhee | 5 | |
| Bald Eagle | 91 | Red-winged Blackbird | 93 | |
| Red-tailed Hawk | 9 | Pine Grosbeak | 4 | |
| Rough-legged Hawk | 10 | Evening Grosbeak | 23 | |
| American Coot | 1 | Snow Bunting (CW) | 50 | |
| Belted Kingfisher | 1 | Pine Siskin | 15 | |
| Downy Woodpecker | 13 | House Finch | 221 | |
| Hairy Woodpecker | 11 | American Goldfinch | 226 | |
| Northern Flicker | 104 | Rock Pigeon | 415 | |
| Pileated Woodpecker | 6 | Eurasian Collared Dove | 151 |