Date: 6/12/25 8:28 pm From: Jason Thiele via groups.io <jasonthiele...> Subject: [NEBirds] Tilden Breeding Bird Survey summary
Hello, Nebraska birders. On June 5, I ran my first Breeding Bird Survey route of the summer under amazing weather conditions. The Tilden route is one of the newer ones in the state and includes portions of Madison, Antelope, and Pierce counties. The first year of the route was the big flood year of 2019, and because of all the water on the landscape, the species list that year was higher than it will probably ever be again for this route at 73. This year I ended up with 64 species (of which 62 were likely breeders), which is right about on track with what I've been getting most years. Below is the list of species and counts. I copied and pasted it directly from the summary page on the BBS data entry portal, so unfortunately the species aren't displayed in the most logical order. Hopefully it will display OK in an e-mail.
A few observations to note:
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Northern Bobwhite numbers were the highest they have been on this route (keeping in mind that there aren't many years of data to compare). The previous high was 21 last year. A couple of mild winters paired with good production last year can probably account for the increase. Very light wind made for high detectability too.
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As usual, there were still a few male Greater Prairie-Chickens displaying on leks.
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Great Blue Heron was recorded for the first time.
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I didn't record any species in what I would consider particularly high numbers, but it was a good day for blue birds, with my counts for Blue Grosbeak and Indigo Bunting both being my highest to date for the route and Blue Jays second-highest. However, I didn't record any Eastern Bluebirds.
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For what I think was the second time on this route, I picked up a late Alder Flycatcher. As an aside, maybe they were just singing more than normal and I wasn't recording so many Empidonax flycatchers as "spuhs" this spring, but they seemed to be unusually abundant in this part of the state.
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Three-minute point counts don't provide a lot of time to observe breeding behavior, but confirmed breeders (usually from observation of a nest or an adult bird carrying nesting material or food) included Red-headed Woodpecker, Hairy Woodpecker, Eastern Kingbird, Cliff Swallow, European Starling, American Robin, Red-winged Blackbird, and Common Grackle.
