Date: 6/13/25 7:14 pm From: Jason Thiele via groups.io <jasonthiele...> Subject: [NEBirds] Wheeler County Breeding Bird Survey summary
Hello again. I completed the Wheeler County Breeding Bird Survey on June 10. A shout out to Rita Cunha, who accompanied me on the count to gain some experience with the BBS protocols. This route starts northwest of Bartlett and ends near the Wheeler/Antelope County line west of Elgin. It has been run on and off since the late 1970s. The summary table from the BBS data entry portal is below. I recorded 60 "official" species for the route plus a Great Horned Owl a few minutes before the start time and a Wood Duck between points. This is slightly below average for recent years but not surprising with the dry conditions. Most of the "missing" species are associated with water - ducks, geese, waders, shorebirds, etc. - and we came a number of dried-up wetlands.
Casual observations:
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The number of ducks that were still paired up seemed high to me. Almost all the Mallards I saw were in male/female pairs. The pair of Gadwalls was maybe the only species that I wouldn't consider more or less a sure thing on this route.
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Greater Prairie-Chickens were "booming" surprisingly late into the morning, albeit in low numbers with peak lekking season well past.
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This route always seems to have good numbers of Wilson's Snipe. Numbers "felt" low to me during the count, but the finally tally still came out pretty good. I didn't see concentrations as I have in some past years when there might be 4-5 winnowing at one stop.
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Grasshopper Sparrow numbers seem to fluctuate wildly on this route, and this year was a bit of a down year.
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Bobolinks are always a highlight on this route as well, and this year was particularly good; numbers were about twice what they've been the past couple of years, but still a far cry from the survey peak of an impressive 113 in 2014.
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Western Meadowlark numbers were on par with recent years, but it's disconcerting how much lower numbers are than they once were, with counts of 300+ being the norm for this route from the late '70s through the early '90s.
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Breeding was confirmed for several species, including Western Kingbird, Barn Swallow, European Starling, Red-winged Blackbird, Orchard Oriole, and Common Grackle.
