For the last two mild winters, Frank Schroyer hasn’t been seeing as many winter finches.
The local birder says it could have been just low population years or it could be that winters weren’t harsh enough for them.
“There's, believe it or not, species that prefer northern Wisconsin as their wintering grounds,” said Schroyer. “But this year, we're seeing several of these species that we haven't for a few years now, Pine Grosbeaks, which are flying around us right now and then Evening Grosbeaks as well, those really colorful yellow birds that come to feeders a lot.”
One tool scientists have to look at these kind of trends over a long period of time is the Christmas Bird Count.
Every year between mid-December and early January, birders across the U.S. take stock of which birds they’re seeing on the landscape.
“We can look at different trends and things like that and see how things maybe were affected by two mild winters, or maybe we had a heavy snow year, a really cold year,” said Schroyer. “It's kind of interesting that I'm out there for fun, but what I'm observing is actually scientific data.”
Schroyer’s idea of fun when it comes to the Christmas Bird Count is seeing how many locations and birds within those locations, he can get each year.
“I enjoy seeing how many I can do. There are actually people in the country too who challenge themselves to do as many Christmas Bird Counts as they can,” said Schroyer. “I think some guy did like, 30 or 40 one year. He was, like, traveling across states to get this done kind of thing, but you can go kind of nuts with it.”
For the most part, people will find a count near them on the Audubon website and contact that locations compiler to sign up and get the details.
Each location will do the count on a single day sometime from December 14th through January 5th.
Some people will go out to different sections to search and count birds for as much of that single day as possible, others will stay cozy in their homes watching their bird feeders when they can.
“Actually, in winter in northern Wisconsin, it's arguably more effective than driving all over the woods and searching for birds that are pretty well dispersed at this point. Feeder counters are really important,” said Schroyer.
Schroyer says this time of year chickadees, woodpeckers, blue jays, and crows are pretty common. He’s hoping to spot Northern Shrike or Rough-legged Hawk this year.
If there’s open water, you may still find some ducks hanging around. People that are motivated to get up in the middle of the night, you’ll have an opportunity to hear owls.
“Owls are actually fairly active this time of year, we're sort of getting into their breeding season, which is kind of interesting, I think,” said Schroyer. “Things like Great Horned Owl are actually gearing up to start nesting in February already, so going out owling can be part of the experience.”
Birds are most active at dawn and dusk. Schroyer says that first hour or two of sunlight tends to be pretty active.
“If it's going to be a colder day, they do sometimes take time to warm up a little bit. They're just like us. I will say, don't feel bad about taking a lunch break. It seems like bird activity really declines in the middle of the day for whatever reason. Maybe they're taking a lunch nap too,” said Schroyer. “But then getting back out in the evening again is really those can be really good times to get out.”
Schroyer also recommends seeking different types of habitats. Open water, open fields, or woods with trees that still have berries on them can all provide good birding opportunities.
All the local counts get added to others being done across the country.
“It's an all volunteer citizen science project, where what we see in count actually is used by scientists across the globe to inform research, essentially,” said Schroyer. “You think about a count that's been happening consistently since 1900 to now, that's over 100 years of bird data.”
There are several local bird counts that could still use volunteers including Rhinelander, Summit Lake, Minocqua, and Manitowish Waters.
