{"id":46383,"date":"2018-12-28T18:01:48","date_gmt":"2018-12-29T01:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/krtnradio.com\/?p=46383"},"modified":"2018-12-31T10:30:34","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T17:30:34","slug":"2018-raton-christmas-bird-count","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/2018\/12\/28\/2018-raton-christmas-bird-count\/","title":{"rendered":"2018 Raton Christmas Bird Count"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Marty Mayfield<\/p>\n

KRTN Multi-Media<\/p>\n

It all started 118 years ago with 25 groups of birders going out counting birds on a given day around Christmas. From that small start the National Audubon Society\u2019s annual Christmas Bird Count has grown to well over 2500 counts across the United States, Canada, Hawaii, the Pacific Islands, the Caribbean, Central and South America.<\/p>\n

According to the National Audubon Society \u201cthe Christmas Bird Count has evolved to become a hugely important pool of data for researchers studying the ongoing status and ranges of bird populations across the Americas.\u00a0 The only other similar yardstick is the Breeding Bird Survey (BBS), run during June in the breeding season.\u00a0 The co-analyses of CBC and BBS have become the combined yardstick by which ornithologists and conservation biologists assess how bird populations are doing–and where they are occurring–across the Americas.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Christmas Bird count is an early-winter bird census, where thousands of volunteers across the U.S., Canada, and many countries in the Western Hemisphere go out over a 24-hour period on one calendar day to count birds. The Audubon Society has designated December 14 through January 5th as the count period in which a count can occur. Birds can bee counted at feeders and in the count area for a total of five days. The birds counted two days before or after the designated day are included as counted during the count week.<\/p>\n

In 2013 the Audubon Society made the Christmas Count free to participate in and is funding the counts with donations. In years past participates paid $5 to participate in a count.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The first bird count to occur in Raton was in 2001 and lasted only eight years ending in 2008 before New Mexico State Parks Ranger Scott Chalmers decided to restart the Raton count. The center of the Raton count is at the exit of I-25 and Highway 72 and extends 7 1\/2 miles out or a 15 mile diameter circle from that center point. The circle includes Sugarite Canyon State Park and Yankee Canyon as well as extending south past the 3-mile bridge.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If you would like to participate or donate to help support the Christmas Bird count you can learn more at\u00a0 <\/span>https:\/\/www.audubon.org\/conservation\/join-christmas-bird-count<\/p>\n

Below is a list of the birds seen on the Christmas Count in the Raton area.<\/p>\n

Wild Turkey 77<\/p>\n

Cooper’s Hawk 1<\/p>\n

Bald Eagle 2<\/p>\n

Red-tailed Hawk 2<\/p>\n

Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon) 49<\/p>\n

Eurasian Collared Dove 32<\/p>\n

Belted Kingfisher 2<\/p>\n

Lewis’s Woodpecker 6<\/p>\n

Downy Woodpecker 5<\/p>\n

Hairy Woodpecker 3<\/p>\n

Northern Flicker 7<\/p>\n

Steller’s Jay 17<\/p>\n

Woodhouse’s Scrub-Jay 12<\/p>\n

Black-billed Magpie 13<\/p>\n

Clark’s Nutcracker 1<\/p>\n

American Crow 7<\/p>\n

Common Raven 58<\/p>\n

Horned Lark 50<\/p>\n

Black-capped Chickadee 20<\/p>\n

Mountain Chickadee 2<\/p>\n

Juniper Titmouse\u00a01<\/p>\n

White-breasted Nuthatch 10<\/p>\n

Brown Creeper 6<\/p>\n

Canyon Wren 1<\/p>\n

Pacific\/Winter Wren 1\u200b<\/p>\n

American Dipper 1<\/p>\n

Golden-crowned Kinglet 3<\/p>\n

Western Bluebird 1<\/p>\n

Townsend’s Solitaire 2<\/p>\n

European Starling 54<\/p>\n

American Tree Sparrow 4<\/p>\n

Dark-eyed Junco 150<\/p>\n

Dark-eyed Junco (Slate-colored) 8<\/p>\n

Dark-eyed Junco (Oregon) 5<\/p>\n

Dark-eyed Junco (Pink-sided) 6<\/p>\n

Dark-eyed Junco (Gray-headed) 41<\/p>\n

Song Sparrow 14<\/p>\n

Spotted Towhee 35<\/p>\n

House Finch 8<\/p>\n

Pine Siskin 3<\/p>\n

American Goldfinch 14<\/p>\n

House Sparrow 18<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
These two Stellar Jays scattered the other birds when they arrive on the feeder at the Visitor’s Center at Sugarite Canyon State Park during the 2018 Christmas Bird Count.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
Participants of the 2018 Christmas Bird Count include Sydney Snyder, Scott Chalmers, Tony Godfrey, Patricia Walsh, and Randy Ruben, behind the camera Marty Mayfield. Participating from home watching feeders are Thomas Scherer and Shela Godfrey.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
The 2018 Raton Christmas Bird Count circle map<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
This Oregon Junco is munching down on bird seed at a Feeder during the 2018 Raton Christmas Bird Count week period<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
These two House Sparrows enjoy munching on bird seed during the 2018 Raton Christmas Bird Count week.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Marty Mayfield KRTN Multi-Media It all started 118 years ago with 25 groups of birders going out counting birds on a given day around Christmas. From that small start the National Audubon Society\u2019s annual Christmas Bird Count has grown to well over 2500 counts across the United States, Canada,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46393,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","entry","rows-excerpt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46383"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46436,"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46383\/revisions\/46436"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krtnradio.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}