A New State Record – 166 Species

As of last night’s countdown, I had counted up 166 species, but I had written down Clay-colored Sparrow twice. So the pretty rock-solid total stood at 165. Then I later found a Canada Goose on one of the lists, so it's back up to 166. There were plenty of rarities, including staked out vagrants as well as some big surprises. But the non-stakeout birds were seen by multiple skilled observers who have already turned in photos or descriptions, making my post-count compiling work so much easier.

It’s hard to pick a “bird of the count,” but I’ll have to go with Vermilion Flycatcher again. If you read in previous posts about the astonishing explosion in Tucson’s resident population, you’ll understand why 387 Vermilion Flycatchers has me simply stunned.

Here’s a quick summary followed with some photos from my day covering Area 22  on bicycle with Jazelle Mondeau.

First what we missed: Seen in the first half of Count Week but missed yesterday: Bullock’s Oriole, Swamp Sparrow, and Redhead. Seen within a week or two and missed: Canada Goose and Magnificent Hummingbird. Not exactly rarities, most certainly present in the circle, and just very local and difficult to locate are Crissal Thrasher, Whiskered Screech-Owl, and Barn Owl. And who knows what rarities are lurking in apartment complexes, lush yards, and blooming eucalyptuses that just weren’t discovered (because a 7.5-mile-radius circle is HUGE)?

Here’s a simple list of the rarities (some staked out, some wonderful surprises) that we can’t expect to get on every year’s CBC, and some certainly not again for a very long time:

American Avocet
Common Poorwill
Lewis's Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
Red-breasted Sapsucker
Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet
Hammond's Flycatcher
Ash-throated Flycatcher
Bell's Vireo (new to the CBC)
Tree Swallow
Barn Swallow
Red-breasted Nuthatch
Brown Creeper
Eastern Bluebird
Louisiana Waterthrush
Virginia's Warbler (new to the CBC)
Lucy's Warbler
Northern Parula
Pine Warbler
Wilson's Warbler
Summer Tanager
Clay-colored Sparrow (nine!)
White-throated Sparrow
Lazuli Bunting
Baltimore Oriole (new to the CBC)
Red Crossbill

I’ve not entered any of the data in order to really start analyzing numbers (and won’t be able to for a few weeks now), but I had to take a quick peek at some, so here’s a sneak preview at some of the exciting results.

My recent scouting efforts as well as eBird submissions hinted that we might get a lot of Black-throated Gray Warblers. Jazelle and I had six in our area alone, while the 42-year average for the entire CBC is only four. Yesterday’s total of 26 is amazing, more than twice the previous high.

I wasn’t prepared to see the astounding number of Cassin’s Vireos though. It’s always less common than Plumbeous Vireo and is missed on about a third of recent counts (such as last year). This year we had 12, which is triple our previous high count and sets a new all-time national high (the previous high was 10, set by San Diego 11 years ago, but of course this year’s results aren’t in yet). Not incidentally, we had 19 Plumbeous Vireos, tying our all-time high from two years ago.

Jazelle and I took a short lunch break at the Rillito Downs Farmers Market, seeing  a soaring Cooper’s Hawk in the process.

We found fewer Vermilion Flycatchers in our area than last year, but we saw more of them in odd little places, such as this pair in a tiny strip of desert between two apartment complexes on the south side of River Road.

We saw two Mountain White-crowned Sparrows (notice the black supraloral stripe and the redder bill) in the Rillito River bed; we walked the entire length of the 1.2 mile stretch of it in our area. This is the subspecies Zonotrichia leucophrys oriantha and has a very good chance of being split from the much more abundant arctic-breeding Gambel’s White-crowned Sparrow. A few other groups also noted this subspecies, which normally winters south of here.

It was also a day of celestial phenomena. Those who went owling in the early morning hours enjoyed the Geminid meteor shower (I saw about 3-4 per minute for over a half hour), and we all finished the day with this lovely Sun Dog.

Many thanks again to Tucson Audubon Society for renting the Tucson Junior League room for our countdown and especially to Jennie MacFarland for preparing the potluck for all of us, and to her and all my amazing friends for helping with the cleanup.

After writing the above, I broke away from more urgent duties and just had to look at a few more species numbers. It turns out we're in the running for the national high of House Finches this year (more than 5600), and we broke all-time national highs for Cooper's Hawk, Gila Woodpecker, and Verdin. With Vermilion Flycatcher and Cassin's Vireo, that's an amazing FIVE all-time national highs broken! Stay tuned for the official final numbers in the next several weeks.