Date: 12/18/24 6:32 pm From: Walker, thomas via groups.io <thomas.walker...> Subject: [NEBirds] North Platte CBC results
The North Platte Christmas Bird Count was held Tuesday, December 17, 2024.
We had 14 observers plus one feeder watcher.
Weather was pretty good overall - a dreary cloudy start to the day broke to a sunny, relatively calm and beautiful day before the winds kicked up about 3 PM.
We had a total of 83 species on the day, our second highest species count only to 2015 when we had 86 species.
Obviously the news of the day was the confirmation on the Couch's Kingbird, which first showed up in a North Platte residential area in late November (but only as an unidentified/likely Couch's or Tropical Kingbird). It showed back up in the same yard two days before our count and we were able to relocate in on the day of the count, get excellent photos and an audio recording to confirm the identification. This was the 141st species documented across all years of the North Platte CBC.
Much less exciting birds included the Long-tailed Duck and Barrow's Goldeneye that have been hanging out on the North Platte Water Treatment Pond for a while now.
Number of total individual birds reported (10,222) was actually considerably lower than most years - primarily due to much lower counts of Canada Goose and Mallard.
Some species notes:
Wood Duck - 11 (Tied record high)
Green-winged Teal - 465 (smashed the previous record high of 129)
Ring-necked Duck - 194 (smashed the previous record high of 95)
Long-tailed Duck - second record (second year in a row)
Barrow's Goldeneye - third count record (but becoming regular in the area in the winter)
Cooper's Hawk - 7 (record high with previous of 4)
Ferruginous Hawk - 3 (modern record high - were two "historic" years with 5)
Iceland Gull - second record, though the 2010 record was of a Thayer's Gull
White-winged Dove - first MISS of this species in 8 years
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker - our one "count week" species this year - missed during the count
Merlin - 6 (doubled the previous record high of 3)
Couch's Kingbird - 1st state record.
Northern Shrike - 5 (beat previous record of 3)
Ruby-crowned Kinglet - 2 (previous record of 1 - which had happened 6 times previously)
Northern Cardinal - 32 (beat previous high by 1)
Great-tailed Grackle - 592 (three large groups located in different areas plus some other stragglers - previous high was 235)
Brown-headed Cowbird - 12 (previous high of 2)
Disappointing misses - Ross's Goose (had very few Snow Geese), Northern Bobwhite, Virginia Rail, White-winged Dove, owls other than Great Horned, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Marsh Wren, Eastern Bluebird (we go Mountain), Lapland Longspur, Pine Siskin (third year in a row).
Thank you to those that participated! Much appreciated!
T. J. Walker
Assistant Division Administrator
Wildlife Division - Partners Section
Nebraska Game and Parks Commission
308-530-7659
