2007 Christmas Count Highlights

I have the best of news to report. We finally broke 100 for the Denton Xmas Count! I didn't think it was possible. We got 101 species!! Unbelievable! The planets or whatever must have all been in the proper alignment or something. The weather was certainly better than what had been forecast earlier in the week and with a lot of effort we had a great day.

What made this new record possible is not missing any of the birds that we should get if conditions were good. It's so easy to miss Catbirds, Brown Thrashers, Snipe, Woodcock, and that sort of thing. We didn't see a Great Black-backed Gull and that was the biggest disappointment that comes to mind--we didn't have them last year either. We had a Mute Swan, a Pied-billed Grebe, and a Goldeneye in the count period and with just a tad more good fortune we could have added them to the total.

Here are the good birds we did see: Green-winged Teal, Canvasback, L. Scaup, Hooded Merganser, (missed C. Merganser but they showed up on Tuesday) Golden Eagle (a first for the count), Saw-whet Owl, Pine Siskin, Rusty Blackbird, Red Crossbill, Lapland Longspur, Snow Bunting, Vesper Sparrow, Black-headed Gull and Ross's Goose.

Thanks again to all our counters!

Steve Westre