Great Backyard Bird Count 2009
Thanks to the stellar efforts of a number of Ogeechee Audubon members and friends, Savannah remains on the Top Ten list for number of species identified during the 2009 Great Backyard Bird Count. While we did not equal our 2008 effort of 166 species, our grand total of 151 species has earned us a tie for 5th with Aransas Pass, Texas. We can be proud of this effort, as all the other cities in the Top Ten are in Texas, California or Florida. Texas and California both have more than 600 species on their state checklists, while Florida has nearly 500. In Georgia, our list has only 408 species.
What this tells us is that through the years, we have learned a lot about which birds are in the Savannah area in the winter and where to find them. Special kudos go to Tim Miller, Stan Gray, Steve Wagner, Diana Churchill, Beth Roth, Vic Carpenter, and a host of others who “birded hard” to locate all these birds.
Skidaway Island and the rivers around it are great for shorebirds, loons, grebes, herons and egrets, as well as Yellow and Black-crowned Night Herons. The Savannah Ogeechee Canal Museum is a good location for Golden and Ruby-crowned Kinglets, wintering warblers (Black and White, Yellow-throated, Orange-crowned), and vireos. The Solomon tract of the Savannah NWR usually has fresh water rails (this year Sora and Virginia) as well as Rusty Blackbirds.
We found Brown Creeper and Sedge Wren at Fort Pulaski.
Misses this year included the marsh sparrows (tides were difficult), Northern Bobwhite, Wild Turkey, and many of the beach birds such as Piping Plover and Red Knot which Pete Range found on Wassaw Island last year. Considering that two of our veteran counters, Dot Bambach and Matt Ryan, spent February in Texas (Dot assures me they did not submit any checklists for Corpus Christi), we can be well pleased with our efforts. If you missed the fun, there’s always 2010!
Diana Churchill