News and event information for Williams Lake, BC - as it happens.

The Christmas Bird Count organized by the Williams Lake Field Naturalists will be held on Sunday, December 20th.  The Williams Lake Count began in January 1969 with 15 observers counting 414 birds of 21 species. Some of those original participants will be out counting again this year. The number of observers has risen over the years with around 50 people in the field and at feeders expecting to see at least 50 species with total counts of anywhere between 3000 - 5000 birds. Each year sets a new milestone with new birds added to the list or new records for species high counts.  

Last year, the Williams Lake count had 62 bird species, eclipsing the previous best total of 58 recorded in 2004. The count also tallied some species in record high numbers; 1,827 Bohemian Waxwings and 355 Mountain Chickadees continued their increase from records set the year before. Undoubtedly the highlight birds of the count were 2 Boreal Owls making their first ever appearance. Some species like the Red-breasted Nuthatch continue to show a steady decline with only 38 birds seen, well down from their high number of 237 in 1995. 

Christmas bird counts, among other popular bird surveys, allow the public to participate and have become known as ‘citizen science’ where we can all contribute in some small way towards a better understanding of bird populations. Although not ‘scientifically rigorous’, when enough data is collected from our counts using a standard survey protocol over a long enough period then the information we can provide to organisations such as Bird Studies Canada and the Audubon Society can be freely shared with the scientific community where it is used to not only determine population trends but to ‘red flag’ the need for a concerted conservation effort for those declining species. 

About 70 million birds were tallied continent wide during last year’s count by about 58,000 volunteers across N. America.  In Canada, 11,500 participants counted over 3.2 million birds on 371 counts. The data gathered by all this work goes into a database (see: www.audubon.org/bird/CBC) used by biologists all over the world to monitor the populations and distribution of North American birds.  

The count area is 24 km diameter centred at the Williams Lake post office. Some boundary points include:

• Wildwood including some of Bull Mountain
• 1/3rd the way up the hill to 150 Mile on Hwy 97 beyond Sugarcane
• Onward Ranch on Mission Road
• SW  end of Brunson Lake
• just beyond the Hydro transmission lines on Dog Creek Road in the south
• the Moon Ranch at Meldrum Creek on the west side of the Fraser
• the back end of Fox Mountain beyond the natural gas transmission line in the east. 

Feeder watchers add greatly to the totals and anyone with an active feeder within the count area is asked to help. If you would like to participate please give count compiler Phil Ranson a call at 398-7110 and call in your feeder totals to Fred McMechan at 392-7680 after 6:00 p.m. on count day.

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