Christmas Bird Count: A Big Success!

The San Marcos Christmas Bird Count circle beat its previous record with a total of 127 species this year! This is remarkable and couldn’t have been done without amazing leaders and participation from all 65 volunteers. So please give yourself a pat on the back for a job well done!

A few highlights from this year included a red crossbill at the Texas State theatre building (Christina Farrell’s group), an elusive long-eared owl at Upper Purgatory Creek (Saunder’s group), long-billed dowitchers in the eastern portion of the circle (Colton and Jesse’s groups), a common gallinule (Colton’s group), a zone-tailed hawk at Spring Lake (Sasha’s observation), a handful of bald eagle sightings, and a black-throated sparrow detected by Stephen.

The spreadsheet below will show how many of each species we detected. The species highlighted in yellow were considered “domestic” and did not count toward our total (which would have been 131 if so). Additionally, the light red highlighted cells indicate groups of individuals that were not identified down to species, so those also did not count toward our totals.

Thank you again for all of your wonderful help this year, as it was a very successful and productive CBC! We couldn’t have done this without everyone’s efforts!

Warm wishes for 2023!

 

---

Written by SMGA member Rebekah Rylander.