Monthly Bird Survey & 118th Annual Christmas Bird Count

One of my favorite things about being an Intern at Corkscrew is getting to participate in bird surveys. What a surprise from the bird nerd, right? As school children are on break from field trips to Corkscrew, I get to do what I love to do on my break too - go birding!

It was a really foggy morning to start!

Myself, two of our education staff members, and a seasoned volunteer hiked through a variety of different habitats from pine-palmetto flatwoods, through the wet prairie, and into the cypress swamp where we ended up thigh-deep in water.

One of the more interesting species that we found during our on-site survey in late December was the Wilson's snipe. We were walking through the pine flatwoods and to our surprise, we flushed 12 snipes from their hiding spot. It was very exciting as I have never seen one in the wild. That's a lifer for me!

Some of our higher numbers came from the following species:

wood stork (14)
red-bellied woodpecker (16)
back vulture (22)
palm warbler (44)
tree swallow (80)

The tree swallows are wintering here in Florida and it is not unusual around this time to see a large group of them darting around like flying acrobats catching up insects - thanks guys! Come anytime.

We were also very happy to see some wood storks. They are hopefully settling in and getting ready to nest soon, and I sure love baby wood storks.

Not only do we do our own bird surveys here on-site every month, but I also captained two different teams for Audubon's 118th Christmas Bird Count. What an honor!

As climate change is a huge concern these days, declining bird populations hits close to home. The data gathered from the Christmas Bird Counts around the United States is used by researchers, conservationists, and government agencies to study and ensure healthy population numbers for the future of these birds.

For the Corkscrew Bird Count, between 14 teams we tallied a total of 120 different species of birds, and a whopping 14,101 birds total recorded for the day - incredible!

Some notable numbers:
wood stork numbers were up from last year - 421 up from 200
8 bald eagles tallied total
7 northern bobwhites were spotted - which is the first time recorded on a CBC since 2011
and a popular favorite, the roseate spoonbill was counted 114 times

All in all, it was a beautiful day of birding. If you are interested in participating in a Christmas Bird Count next year near you, you can read more information about it here.

-Shelby (Education Intern)