Cheshire Flies High with Backyard Bird Count

More than two dozen Cheshire families and individual bird watchers counted birds in parks or backyards during the 14th annual Great Backyard Bird Count which was held Feb. 18-21. 

The 27 reports from "citizen scientists" place Cheshire in the top five in the state for participants. A total of 702 birds were counted in Cheshire during the survey with some fairly rare sightings of three Pileated Woodpeckers, two Northern Saw-whet Owls, and one Eastern Screech-Owl.

The most reported bird species was the dark-eyed Junco with 107 sighted in the four-day count. Other species with numerous sightings include: the Mourning Dove with 50 bird seen and the American Crow with 67 spotted by participants.

The count, which is conducted in the United States and Canada, is coordinated by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Audubon, and Bird Studies Canada, records more than 10 million observations from bird watchers each year.

“When thousands of people all tell us what they’re seeing, we can detect changes in birds’ numbers and locations from year to year,” Janis Dickinson, director of Citizen Science at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, said in a statement.

“An isolated event such as the dead birds in Arkansas (on New Year's Eve) may be within the range of normal ups and downs for an abundant species like the Red-winged Blackbird,” Dickinson said. “But the count can serve as an early warning system for worrisome declines in bird populations that result from more widespread problems," she said.

Dickinson said past back-yard surveys showed a drop in reports of American Crows since 2003, coincident with some of the first widespread outbreaks of West Nile virus in the U.S.

Once ranked among the top 4 or 5 most frequently reported species, crows are still among the top 10 birds reported in the Great Backyard Bird Count but they have dropped in ranking since 2003. This “signal” is consistent with data from the more intensive Breeding Bird Survey, as well as studies demonstrating declines of 50–75% in crow populations in some states after outbreaks of West Nile virus, according to Dickinson.

The top three towns with high participation in the state were: Norwich, Stratford and Fairfield, according to the results.

For more information about the backyard bird count, go to: www.birdsource.org/gbbc.