2024 Christmas Bird Count

What is the Christmas Bird Count?

The Christmas Bird Count used to be known as Side Hunts, when hunters would go out during the holiday and kill as many birds as they could find. Ornithologist Frank M. Chapman founder of Bird-Lore (which became Audubon Magazine) suggested counting birds instead of killing them. And so it began, the first count occurred in 1900. The count is administered by Audubon and conducted by volunteers. The bird population data is collected and is used for scientific studies and reports. This is the longest citizen-science data collection in the world.

The counts takes place between Dec 14 and Jan 05. A count is conducted in a Count Circle, usually in a diameter of 15-miles. The volunteers cover routes which change little from year to year. They keep track of each bird species and number they see. The count can run before sunrise and after sunset, to include nocturnal species.

The results are then tallied at the end of the day and reported to sector coordinators.

For more information about the Christmas Bird Count visit Audubon’s Christmas Bird Count site: https://www.audubon.org/conservation/science/christmas-bird-count/history-christmas-bird-count

I have participated in the Christmas Bird Count for six years. This year I went to a location in Talbot County on 15 Dec 2024, and Anne Arundel County, MD on 5 Jan 2025..

Talbot County - 15 December 2024

I birded the Hundred Bay area (private properties) with three fellow birders. We started at 7:45am and finished about 3:00pm. I reported 38 species.

Weather - It was a cold day (especially near the water), 35F. It remained cloudy all day. North winds 10mph.

Anne Arundel County - 5 January 2025

I birded Gibson Island (private) with three others. I usually start a dawn but it was VERY cold this day. The feels like at dawn was 5F, so I instead waiting till 8:30 when the feels like was 8F. I birded the island for 8 hours.

Weather - It was very cold, started with some clouds, ended mostly cloudy, 25-34F with West winds at 14-21mph.

I saw 50 species (same as last year), 2,429 individual birds. As a group we saw 52 (same as last year) species. No rarities this year.