BY TIM MARCHANT
SSI CHRISTMAS BIRD COUNT COORDINATOR
On Dec. 15, 2024, we held Salt Spring’s 36th Christmas Bird Count in lovely weather. This year is the 125th Birds Canada/Audubon Christmas Bird Count since the original count on Christmas Day in 1900 by two counters in Canada and 25 in the U.S.
The list below is sorted in accordance with the latest American Ornithological Union (AOU) taxonomy, Clements 2024, which is also used by eBird. Exceptions are the six species listed in lighter print, which are “write ins” — species not commonly sighted during our Christmas counts. This list is a combination of counts done in 12 zones covering Salt Spring and Prevost islands, and which are reported to the Audubon database.
This year our total count came to 16,146, just above last year’s 15,673. But with 92 species this year, we didn’t quite match last year’s 96.
As is their habit, the birds did what they wanted, and so surprised us in a few ways.
1. Not a pigeon to be seen during the count. With the road construction, it’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve been to Ganges, but I’ll bet they’ve re-appeared. In the past 35 annual counts, a count of zero has happened once before.
2. Our #1 species this year was the pine siskin. After a couple of quite low counts in 2022 and 2023, they outnumbered even our perennial top species, the dark-eyed junco, by 2,804 to 1,544. Like many species, their count varies widely with factors such as available food. They were counted very high in 2020, 2012, 2007, 2001, 1993 — so every few years we see a peak.
3. Much like the pine siskin, the red crossbill did very well this year with 522 counted. They also have peak years spaced a few years apart. Non-peak years average around 40 counted, so one-tenth of what we counted this peak year.
4. Our “most improved” species this year has to be the western grebe. It’s been 21 years (2003) since they counted this high — 725 of them this year — after averaging 55 per year since 2004. Peter McAllister, co-ordinator for North Salt Spring, commented: “Might this be a precursor for a more upscale herring run?” That would be good.
5. Although we welcome only a few to our waters, our largest native waterfowl, the trumpeter swan, seems to be doing better in the past few years after a weak decade. In fact, with sightings each year in the past six counts, that is the longest continuous run for them since we started counting in 1989.
6. Siskins and crossbills may have had lots to eat this year, but American robins must not have — a low year of 452 counted. In half of the past 20 years, robins counted over 1,000 individuals. But they’ll be back.
7. Great horned owls counted way above average this year with 22 individuals. Two years ago we counted 14, but usually we only count two to eight of them in a year. We’ve certainly heard them in the woods around our house this past year.
8. Highest European starling count in the last 25 years, with 1,038 this year while a typical year may be 200to 600, so whatever affected the pigeons certainly didn’t affect the starlings.
9. And a note about the two most recent arrivals to Salt Spring: (1) Anna’s hummingbirds have been counted every year from 2004, 21 years now. They seem to have stabilized around 200 per year with 190 counted this year. (2) Eurasian-collared doves were first counted in 2011 and are running 10 to 20 per year now (19 this year).
Dec 15 CBC Top Ten Species
Siskin, pine, 2,804
Junco, dark-eyed, 1,544
Starling, European, 1,038
Bufflehead, 963
Grebe, western, 725
Chickadee, chestnut-backed, 697
Goose, Canada, 532
Crossbill, red, 522
Towhee, spotted, 434
Merganser, common, 388
We’d also like to highlight the CBC4kids — a Christmas Bird Count for children — held at Beddis Beach on Dec. 30 with children this year from ages six to 15. A total of 165 birds were counted of 21 species. That’s more than double the 69 of 17 species in 2023.
CBC4kids Top Five Species
Robin, American, 36
Blackbird, red-winged, 33
Siskin, pine, 27
Merganser, red-breasted, 17
Gull, glaucous-winged, 10
Thanks — as every year — go to the 159 counters who spent 230 hours counting, and to Kathleen Maser and our zone captains.
Thanks also to Nature Salt Spring and to Peter McAllister for sponsoring this year’s pre-count get together at the golf club. I’ve been doing this for 15 years now and every year is fun, so thank you for another one.