Nearly a Century of Counts
Bronx Westchester Christmas Bird Count 1924-2022
The Bronx Westchester Christmas Bird Count has been taking place since the Bronx County Bird Club first strategized their count plan in 1924 - only 24 years after the first Christmas Count was started by Frank M. Chapman.
EXCEL Spread Sheet of all birds 1924-2023
Past Compiler Write -ups 1988-2023
100TH BRONX-WESTCHESTER CHRISTMAS BIRD COUNT
This year’s count was held on Saturday, December 23, 2023.
The Bronx-Westchester CBC celebrated its 100th count. The count’s lineage goes back to the 1924 count started by the famed Bronx County Bird Club. The count found 121 species plus 4 count week and tallied 35,354 birds.
Highlights included two new species for the count. A MacGillivray’s Warbler was found in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, and two Ash-throated Flycatchers, one in the southern section of Pelham Bay Park, one in Mount Vernon. The cumulative species for the count now stands at 236.
Other highlights were Cackling Goose, Surf and White-winged Scoters, 3 Red-necked Grebe, 2 Semipalmated Plover (4th count record), Iceland Gull, Clapper and Virginia Rails, 5 Great Egret in 4-5 locations, including Tibbetts Brook Park in Yonkers and a flyover in Hastings-on-Hudson, Red-headed Woodpecker in Marshlands Conservancy, 4 Chipping Sparrows, Baltimore Oriole at a Yonkers feeder, 7 Orange-crowned Warbler (also a new high count), Nashville Warbler, Common Yellowthroat, and Palm Warbler.
New high counts were 81 Wild Turkey (75 in 2007) and 76 Common Loon (65 in 2020)
We had 20-year highs for; Clapper Rail, Killdeer, Eastern Screech-Owl, Belted Kingfisher, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Golden-crowned Kinglet, American Pipit, House Finch, and Yellow-rumped Warbler. We had a 20-year low for Black-capped Chickadee.
Only one Canvasback, a male in the Hudson off the Beczak Environmental Education Center and one Northern Pintail were found.
Count week birds included Greater White-fronted Goose, Black Vulture, Clay-colored Sparrow, and Cape May Warbler (never seen on the count)
Misses include Snow Goose. Ruddy Turnstone, and Dunlin.
Here is the full breakdown of the numbers. Thanks all who helped on the count.
NEXT YEAR’s COUNT will be SUNDAY, December 22, 2024 (note: the next National Audubon CBC will have four available weekends)
Michael Bochnik
Bronx-Westchester CBC Compiler
results of prior years
Past compiler write-ups and results are available HERE.
The National Audubon Society maintains a database of all Christmas Bird Counts, starting with the very first. This is a massive citizen science undertaking which provides important information about the status of bird populations.
This year, about 30,000 people worldwide counted 2400 species, for a total of 65-70 million birds.
You can find results of previous Bronx-Westchester Christmas Bird Counts by accessing the database maintained by National Audubon. You will need to enter our count code: NYBC.
all the birds ever
This is a downloadable MS Excel file of all bird seen on all Bronx Westchester Christmas Bird Counts, thanks to Michael Bochnik’s superb record keeping
More about Christmas Bird Counts on National Audubon’s web site