Monday, February 16, 2009

School's Out Bird Count February 16, 2009


The Howard County Conservancy's School's Out Program participated in the Audubon bird count on February 16, 2009. Participating in the bird count were Tabby Fique, Education Director and students Patrick Swentzel, Colin Steplowski, Lewis and Sidney Hollander, Emily Tardell, Meg and Caroline Tippett, Anna Boyd, Kevin Aguilera, Ivy Liu and Dylan Boswell. This is what they saw:

3 Black Vultures
1 Turkey Vulture
1 Mourning Dove
1 Red-shouldered Hawk
1 Red-bellied woodpecker
1 Downy Woodpecker
5 Carolina Chickadee
1 Tufted Titmouse
1 Red-breasted Nuthatch
3 White-breasted Nuthatch
5 Eastern Bluebird
1 European Starlings
1 Warbler
2 Song Sparrow
5 Dark eyed Junco
7 Northern Cardinal
1 Common Grackle
5 House Finch

Monday, February 9, 2009

Howard County Bird Club Count

The Howard County Bird Club conducted a mid-winter bird count at the Conservancy on February 7th. Here are their results:

The Club was on the property from 7:00 to 11:00 a.m. and found 32 species, down from last year’s 35 species. The biggest miss was American Tree Sparrows. Mount Pleasant has consistently yielded American Tree Sparrows for the Mid-Winter Count for as long as I’ve covered the farm, so this was a big surprise. But we had two new species, one Brown Thrasher, and six Pine Siskins. Brown Thrasher is a new species for winter on Mount Pleasant. I see that Pine Siskin is already on the list, but no season has yet been designated for it. At least four were visiting the feeders behind the Gudelsky Center. We found two more at the north edge of the big field owned the State


The count:


Canada Goose 12
Black Vulture 1
Turkey Vulture 1
Ring-billed Gull 32
gull species 7
Rock Pigeon 2
Mourning Dove 3
Red-bellied Woodpecker 6
Downy Woodpecker 6
Northern Flicker 2
Pileated Woodpecker 2
Blue Jay 16
American Crow 32
Fish Crow 6
crow species 2
Carolina Chickadee 13
Tufted Titmouse 11
White-breasted Nuthatch 4
Carolina Wren 3
Eastern Bluebird 12
Northern Mockingbird 9
Brown Thrasher 1
European Starling 21
Eastern Towhee 5
Song Sparrow 29
White-throated Sparrow 26
Dark-eyed Junco 25
Northern Cardinal 12
Red-winged Blackbird 6
Common Grackle 2
blackbird species 300
House Finch 11
Pine Siskin 6
American Goldfinch 19

The Howard County Conservancy would like to thank the Howard County Bird Club for conducting this count at Mt. Pleasant.