Thank you to the many who participated in the 2025 Cache Valley (Logan) Christmas Bird Count. Everyone contributed and we could not conduct the count without your service.
Thank you also to those of you who are curious about the numbers of species and our counts. We encourage you to sign up for our preparatory meeting and assist sector leaders in counting next December. Our count is always held on the first Saturday after the count opens. The National Audubon count dates are always December 14-January 5.
Contents:
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- Home Sector Count Summary
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- Count Summary by Sector
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- Analysis: Birds seen in 2025 and not 2024
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- Birds seen in 2024 and not in 2025
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- 2025 Christmas Bird Count Narrative per Jim Cane
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- Logan Christmas Bird Count Spreadsheet (without participants)
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- National Audubon Christmas Bird Count Analysis Tools
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- Return to the Bridgerland Audubon Christmas Bird Count Page
Analysis: Birds seen in 2025 and not 2024
Birds seen in 2024 and not in 2025
2025 Christmas Bird Count Narrative per Jim Cane
Participants in Cache Valley’s 2025 annual Christmas Bird Count enjoyed a calm day that warmed into the low 50’s, consistent with autumn’s record warmth that lingered through
December. Snow was absent. Eric Bingham and others recruited our trusty crews to undertake Logan’s 66 th annual CBC in the last 70 years and later tackled recording. Our
potluck featured a delectable chili with blue corn bread side prepared by Eric’s wife. Eric plus his son Thomas, Hilary Shughart and Jim Cane again compiled and reported to Audubon.
Balmy weather on December 20th was a boon for comfortable bird watching by our flock of devoted, keen observers, whether in the field or watching home feeders. We collectively
found 92 species while tallying more than 45,000 individual birds. Our winter species range widely in size, from kinglets to eagles.
Several species were in record numbers. We’ve seen Gadwall every year of the last 50, but this year’s count of 6866 birds was nearly double last year’s record, which doubled the previous year’s count. Gadzooks! Other record counts this year were: Bufflehead (109), Eurasian Collared Dove (1081), Yellow-rumped Warblers (43) and American pipit (105), all of which far exceeded previous record counts here. This year’s green-winged teals (461) were only outnumbered by last year’s count of 1220. As a sober reminder, four Old World species comprised 2/3 of out total tally. Happily, we saw less European Starlings (27,526) and Weaver Finches (house sparrows) (1747) than average on recent counts. We encountered fewer pheasants and turkeys too.
Strays and laggard migrants were absent but one, a lone Northern Mockingbird. With our mild autumn and early winter, one might have expected more. Was that the same mockingbird that we saw last year? Did it linger here to sing in the spring? We missed seeing brown creepers, a few of which have shown themselves on 47 of the last 50 counts. We nonetheless had about the average number of species represented by singletons (8 vs. 11).
Owls were again sparse overall despite nocturnal teams nosing up every canyon. Nonetheless, our diligent owlers (you know who who you are) ultimately rustled up one or more of every species, including seven Northern Saw-whet Owls, matching our previous record. We last scored every owl species a decade ago. We saw no Ferruginous Hawks (never more than a few in any year) or Rough-legged Hawks (last skunked way back in 1973), the latter a winter migrant here. Our count of tilting Harriers was half of average, but excepting these, diurnal raptors were in good number. Without protective snow cover, our valley rodents can’t be rapturous about all of these hungry raptors overhead!
Some species are counted in many sectors and in consistent numbers every year, particularly These include: Black-capped Chickadees, Magpies, Juncos, Northern Flickers and American Kestrels. Flickers seem to be in most every sector, every year. Fewer Wilson’s Snipe have been seen over the last 10-15 years (just 10 this year) compared with 1980-2010, when we’d count 30-70 or more birds. No doubt their decline reflects loss of remnant wetlands to paving, piping and draining, particularly for subdivisions on the benches. Irruptive species were absent from our count, but there is always hope for the winter months.
Our count relies entirely on the keen eyes, identification skills and perseverance of our volunteer birders. Eric deserves praise for the fussy hours spent organizing and later entering
the count for Audubon. We greatly appreciate so many stalwarts sticking with our count, particularly sector leaders, plus some new recruits. The last year with no CBC count here was
1973, before many of our birders were born! You can see past counts and summaries at our web site:
https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/our-projects/cache-valley-christmas-bird-count/#Count-Reports
Jim Cane
Logan Christmas Bird Count Spreadsheet (without participants)
National Audubon Christmas Bird Count Analysis Tools
National Audubon 2025 Christmas Bird Count Results are still pending
Annual Summaries of the Christmas Bird Count, 1901-Present, https://www.audubon.org/community-science/christmas-bird-count/annual-summaries-of-christmas-bird-count-1901-present
Return to the Bridgerland Audubon Christmas Bird Count Page
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