Help count birds during Audubon event Dec. 26

Published 1:30 am Sunday, December 18, 2016

Anticipation is on the wing.

The annual Everett-Marysville Christmas Bird Count will be held Dec. 26. The cold weather that we’ve been having may be driving northerners, such as the Bohemian waxwing, into Snohomish County. If the waxwing is counted, it would be only the second sighting since the count started in 1975.

“Two great egrets appear to be a likely first-time-ever showing on our CBC,” said Scott Atkinson, compiler of the Everett-Marysville count. “They’ve been staked out near Sunnyside Boulevard marshland just south of Marysville for several weeks.”

Nationally, this is Audubon Society’s 117th Christmas Bird Count. Each local count is in an established 15-mile-diameter circle. If you are a beginning birdwatcher, you will be able to join a group that includes at least one experienced birder.

In the last few years, Pilchuck Audubon Society has been creative in its approach to covering as much territory as possible.

Two kayak squads are in the Snohomish delta, a boatload of birders are returning to Hat Island, for a third year birders are covering Jetty Island, biker-birder Tom Schulze will again hit the Centennial Trail, and this year at least one hunter is a volunteer.

More than 110 volunteers have signed up to cover 17 territories. Atkinson is still looking for more feeder-watchers and folks who can bird on their private property to add to the bird count.

“Major dike breach activity has opened up habitat north of the Everett sewage treatment ponds,” Atkinson said. “Sparrows and small passerines are moving south, apparently to flatlands below Lake Stevens along Sunnyside Boulevard, and short-eared owls are more numerous at the old Biringer Farm site, he said.

Biringer Farm “is the best single site for bird diversity within the entire count circle,” Atkinson said. “The wintering sparrow density and diversity is remarkable … and it is simply terrific for raptors, ducks, and the raptor-like songbird the Northern shrike, which shish-ka-bobs its songbird prey on sharp twigs for later meal times.

“Open-country birds like the Western meadowlark and the open-field-loving American pipit come here in winter. Barn owls often roost in the little group of dense conifers right next to I-5 at the south end of the property.”

The CBC is one of the last chances to bird on the old Biringer Farm. The Port of Everett, which owns the 358-acre farm site, will flood the area to create freshwater wetlands and brackish marsh habitat as part of a salmon habitat restoration project.

Ironically, flooding the old farm probably will make it a less popular habitat for birds, Atkinson said, if Spencer Island is an example. Flooding meant “the end of small standing freshwater pockets and alder-bramble scrub [that] has had a dramatic negative impact on many birds and other wildlife.”

To volunteer for or ask questions about the count, call Atkinson at 425-210-2716 or email scottratkinson@hotmail.com.

A sad call. To report dead, sick or injured swans in Snohomish, Skagit or Whatcom counties, call 360-466-4345, ext. 266, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife hotline.

The hotline is part of the department’s ongoing effort to assess the impact of lead poisoning on trumpeter swans.

Callers should be prepared to leave a message including their name and phone number, and the location and condition of the swans. The hotline is available 24 hours a day through the end of March.

Some trumpeter swans in those three counties, and in southwestern British Columbia, die each winter from lead poisoning after ingesting lead shot in areas where they feed.

Lead shot has been banned for waterfowl hunting in Washington for more than 25 years. But swans can still pick up and ingest lead shot while foraging in shallow underwater areas in fields and roosts where lead shot is still present.

Columnist Sharon Wootton can be reached at 360-468-3964 or songandword@rockisland.com.