The 107th annual Christmas Bird Count sponsored by the National Audubon Society and the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology was held on December 17th. The Christmas Bird Count is a long-standing program of the National Audubon Society. It is an early-winter bird census, where volunteers follow specified routes through a designated 15-mile (24-km) diameter circle, counting every bird they see or hear all day. It’s not just a species tally-all birds are counted all day, giving an indication of the total number of birds in the circle that day. All individual CBC’s are conducted in the period from 14 December to 5 January (inclusive dates) each season, and each count is conducted in one calendar day. Thirty-four count circles are located entirely or partly within Massachusetts. For more information and to see last year’s results, visit the Audubon website https://www.audubon.org/christmas-bird-count or the 11/30/2006 issue of NatureNotes.
During the 2006 count, these species not seen in 2004 or 2005 were noted:
- Baltimore Oriole
- Bufflehead
- Eastern Bluebird
- Field Sparrow
- Ruddy Duck
- Turkey Vulture
- White-crowned Sparrow
- Wood Duck
