By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
Each winter, the National Audobon Society conducts hundreds of Christmas Bird Counts around the nation, including approximately 40 in Kansas. The Cheyenne Bottoms count, which covers a 15-mile radius that touches most communities in Barton County, was held on Dec. 18. Kansas Wetlands Education Center Director Curtis Wolf said the count went from 61 species last year to 77 species this year.
"Overall, I'd say the number of birds we documented this year was pretty typical," he said. "Because the winter has been relatively mild so far, I thought we had a chance to get some additional shorebirds and some other wetland birds. We didn't find them like we thought. We definitely missed a few species I thought we could have seen just because of what the conditions have been like this winter."
Nineteen volunteers helped with the count this year, up from 16 a year ago. The mild winter has kept birds in the area with 15 species of waterfowl counted, and 147,345 total birds counted. A snow geese count of 126,049 birds - the highest recorded for the Bottoms count - played a large role in that figure. Just 339 red-winged blackbirds, the second-lowest figure in the last 15 years, kept the overall number down.
"Obviously, the conditions and weather we have that time of year can have a huge effect on the number of birds we see," Wolf said. "Probably one of the big things we've noticed is the lack of red-winged blackbirds. In years past, we've estimated well over a million red-winged blackbirds in the area with some of those huge flocks."
Wolf said cattail control at the Bottoms is likely the reason the blackbirds have gone away. "That's the type of information that the Christmas Bird County is trying to document and monitor," he said. "Having only 300 red-winged blackbirds on the count is pretty telling about some of the conditions for that particular bird."
Twenty-five bald eagles were counted, along with five least sandpipers, which made the count for just the third time. A lesser black-backed gull made an appearance for just the second time, and 30 rusty blackbirds marked a fifth year in the count. The 160 mourning doves counted was the highest ever in the count. Fifty-five sandhill cranes flew over the KWEC just after noon, and 626 meadowlarks were counted throughout the day, including several at the KWEC. Absent for this year's count were prairie falcons, loggerhead shrikes, and brown-headed cowbirds to name a few.