BY JOY SEGALL
Santa Fe Audubon
Seventy-three birders with binoculars, telescopes, and cameras took to the roads, fields, forests, and lakes on December 15 for the 34th annual Christmas Bird Count of the Melrose Circle.
Covering over 175 square miles in a circle centered at the intersection of State Road 100 and Clay County Road 219, the same area has been surveyed by local volunteers on a single day each December since 1990 as a part of a National Audubon Society project that “constitutes the longest running and geographically most widespread survey of bird life in the Western hemisphere.”
This extraordinary example of citizen science began in 1901 when many of our iconic water birds were nearly hunted to extinction in the name of fashion. Melrose, interestingly, had one of the earliest counts, led by the Rev. Walter I. Eck in 1907, but there were no more local counts until the current circle was established. That first year, with far fewer observers and considerably less sophisticated equipment, 35 species and 1,145 individuals were recorded.
2nd-highest species ever counted
This year, 127 species and 27,627 individuals were tallied. It was the second-highest number of species ever counted locally and the third-highest number of individual birds.
The most widely spread species was the Northern Cardinal, with 17 of the 19 teams reporting cardinals. Tree Swallows, with 6,070 recorded, constituted this year’s highest count of individuals, closely followed by American Robins at 5,499. Three other species breaking the 1,000 mark were Ring-billed Gulls, Ring-necked Ducks, and Red-Winged Blackbirds.
Exciting finds this year included two Eared Grebes, commonly found west of the Mississippi, and two Ruby-throated Hummingbirds who have chosen to winter in the area. Other rarities include the Franklin’s Gull, Black Scoter, and Field Sparrow.
Counts of woodpeckers were up from last year, as were warblers and hawks, but there were fewer Cedar Waxwings.
In 2022, there were 83 Circles in Florida. The Melrose Circle led the state with American Robins at over 100,000, a huge record that will be tough to break, and was over one-third of all American Robins seen in the state. The Melrose Circle also led the state in the rarer Golden-Crowned Kinglet, with 10 individuals counted. The 2023 robin count was robust but nowhere near last year’s record, and our count of Golden-Crowned Kinglets dropped to two birds this year.
Data used in research
The Christmas Bird Count has grown continuously from its initial 25 to nearly 2,000 count circles across the US and its territories, southern Canada, and, increasingly, Latin America.
It provides valuable long-term data for researchers studying winter bird populations and for federal agencies making decisions related to birds. More than 300 peer-reviewed articles have already resulted from analyses done with the information gathered by more than 50,000 observers who contributed their time.
Santa Fe Audubon Society thanks all participants, including employees at some restricted properties and volunteers from the wider region – Gainesville, High Springs, Penney Farms, and others – who joined the local observers.
Thanks, also, to the many private property owners who allow us to cover their properties from parts of Gold Head Branch State Park and Camp Blanding to the Lake Region from Keystone Heights, Florahome, Melrose, Earleton, and Grandin to Melrose Landing and including, among many others, Lake Santa Fe, the Santa Fe Swamp, and Lakes Geneva and Brooklyn.
More information on the Christmas Bird Count is available at https://www.audubon.org/conservation/science/christmas-bird-count.
