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Only a few places remain for our upcoming
Hummingbird Expedition to Costa Rica
in February 2007

When the Saturday before Christmas rolls around, we never know what to expect with regard to weather, birds, or birders eager to participate in our annual York/Rock Hill Christmas Bird Count. The 16th annual count on 23 December 2006 was no exception: Unusually warm temperatures (compared to frigid readings in the teens two years ago); near-record-high numbers of bird species; and a small but diligent group of folks dedicated to documenting the winter birds of York County SC. Established in 1991, the count circle covers most major habitats in the eastern half of the county, including Lake Wylie, mixed woodlands, agricultural fields, power line rights-of-way, urban and suburban yards, school campuses, and--at its western edge--Hilton Pond Center. As a result, in good years we get a nice diversity of birds, and 2006 was a great year.

All text, tables & photos © Hilton Pond Center

On hand for the count were two first-timers, Tim Allison (an Ottawa, Canada native on exchange as a Lancaster SC teacher) and Robert Miller (one of our Fort Mill students from 'way back in 1971 who now works in Columbia). Also present were our usual "old-timers," including Steve Patterson (a Lancaster pastor, consummate birder, and participant in three York/Rock Hill CBCs), Susan Holland (world-traveling birder from Tega Cay who's helped with ten of our local CBCs), and Bill Hilton Jr. (originator, compiler, and 16-year veteran of the count).

After convening at 6:15 a.m. in Rock Hill, participants divided into groups and drove off into the darkness to designated sectors in the 15-mile-diameter count circle (below), where they strained their ears for owl calls and waited for skies to lighten enough to visually identify the morning's first birds. Tim Allison had stopped within the count circle on his way up from Lancaster and heard an Eastern Screech-Owl--a hard-to-get bird for the York/Rock Hill count that went down as the first species tallied for 2006.

Needless to say, it's impossible for five people to completely cover the entire count circle, but that can be said of any Christmas Bird Count--even those that have dozens (even hundreds) of participants. We still gave it our best, however, and had a very good morning at places such as Ebenezer Landing on Lake Wylie, the Red River area, York County's Landfill, woods and fields at or adjoining Hilton Pond Center, and backyards in and around Rock Hill. When the participants re-convened at noon, 'most everyone had good tallies, but we personally were chagrined to report that our annual trip to "the dump" had--for the first time in 16 years--failed to produce even one Turkey Vulture, Black Vulture, or Ring-billed Gull. (Our York "garbage birds" seem to have gone to browner pastures now that the county has changed from open burial of food wastes to containerized collection and transport.) Despite this disappointing lack of scavengers, the CBC participants determined we collectively had seen 72 species of birds, which already equalled our second-best counts in 1994 and 2005. As we set out for new areas in the afternoon, our goal was to reach 80--the all-time high count from 23 December 2000.

..

As always, our first stop after lunch was the home of Lenore Berry, who permitted us to look for Perdita, a Rufous Hummingbird that has spent the past four winters at the Berry feeders. Although we waited 20 minutes or so, Perdita failed to appear, but since Lenore had seen the bird at the feeder earlier that day we were able to add it to this year's list.

During the count, Tim Allison had his digital camera at the ready and snapped some nice shots of Red-shouldered Hawks. The bird at left above with a bright rusty breast is an adult, while the one at right is a young bird-of-the-year with vertical brown streaking. Also noticeable is a diagnostic difference in eye color: Deep red in the adult, yellow in the juvenile. (Young red-shouldereds are sometimes confused with other raptor species--especially Cooper's and Sharp-shinned Hawks; we suggest a careful study of field guides if you are in doubt.)

We, too, had a camera with us during the day and include three photos of birds we observed. At the top of this page is a female Belted Kingfisher fulfilling her name at the Winthrop University Farm in Rock Hill. (This species is unusual in that the female--which has a rusty belt as well as a blue one--is more brightly colored that the male with his single belt of blue.) Above right is a Red-tailed Hawk perched far away in a tree at the York County Landfill. (We needed a 400mm telephoto and 1.4x extender to bring it in close.) If you can't spot this bird's signature field mark--the bright, rusty tail--you can almost always see a belly band, although this characteristic isn't always as noticeable as in the hawk shown above.

Our last photo (above) portrays a mixed flock of waterfowl in late afternoon on a lake behind Moss Justice Center near York. The larger birds are those nearly ubiquitous Canada Geese; the others are male and female Ring-necked Ducks--a total of 50 of the latter paddling around as the sun sank low on the horizon. A vertical crescent of white on the bird at foreground is diagnostic for male Ring-necked Ducks.

After we snapped our duck and goose photo it was time to head back to Rock Hill to meet the group and determine what we had to show for our 11 hours in the field. As it turned out, we did quite well.

We learned Robert Miller had spotted a large white wading bird that at this time of year could only have been a Great Egret--a new species (#108) for the York/Rock Hill Christmas Bird Count. We failed to reach the magic number of 80, but we DID have 78 species--making the 2006 tally the second-best in the count's 16 years. Had we seen some of our "regular" species (e.g., Wood Duck or Brown-headed Cowbird) or had certain winter migrants arrived from up north (Purple Finch, Red-breasted Nuthatch, and Pine Siskin), we might have set a new record. But we can't be greedy, knowing we DID get some of our tougher birds such as Northern Bobwhite, Brown Creeper, Bufflehead, White-breasted Nuthatch, Vesper Sparrow, Woodcock, Wild Turkey, and Common Yellowthroat.

What was most amazing was that we set new highs for numbers of individuals for 14 different species, in some cases obliterating the old record by a wide margin. These (in red on the table below) included Northern Cardinal (169, up from 140), Carolina Chickadee (159>66), Brown Creeper (3>2), Ring-necked Duck (50>19), Great Egret (1>0), Golden-crowned Kinglet (38>17), Song Sparrow (91>47), White-throated Sparrow (179>98), Brown Thrasher (14>8), Tufted Titmouse (41>40), Eastern Towhee (59>41), Black Vulture (222>94), Red-bellied Woodpecker (27>22), and Carolina Wren (60>42). For five other species we tied old records: Rufous Hummingbird (1), Brown-headed Nuthatch (18), White-breasted Nuthatch (2), Eastern Screech-Owl (1), and Common Yellowthroat (1). Sounds like at least some bird species are still doing pretty well in York County!

In all we tallied 3,708 individual birds, which was below our 16-year average of 5,968--mostly because we lacked any large concentrations of Ring-billed Gulls, American Robins, and sundry blackbirds. (A single flock of 3,000 or so Common Grackles can really run up the numbers in years when these birds are present.) Nonetheless, it was indeed a great day in the field for participants in the 16th annual York/Rock Hill Christmas Bird Count, and we hope you'll consider joining us for the next year's event; details are at 22 December 2007 CBC.

All text, tables & photos © Hilton Pond Center
Red-shouldered Hawk photos courtesy Tim Allison

All text, tables & photos © Hilton Pond Center

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Be sure to scroll down for an account of all
birds banded or recaptured during the period,
plus other nature notes of interest.

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