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Local bird watchers helping with annual Audubon count

Despite freezing rain and snow, local bird watchers helped the National Audubon Society count bird species and numbers in Trumbull County.

Carole Babyak, local coordinator of the Trumbull County annual bird count held Dec. 18, said that day had freezing rain, which fell on the already five to eight inches of snow on the ground.

“The rain turned to ice. Main roads were treated, but that ice was a challenge to the participants of the count because walking was difficult and many roads were slick. This also affected the birds,” Babyak said.

Temperatures the day of the count were 28 in the morning and 17 by afternoon.

“The participants in the field need to be praised for helping and they counted all the hardy birds that remained. Even the people watching their feeders found some extraordinary birds,” Babyak said.

Among the birds counted included a small screech owl which was trying to hide from the other birds. Participants surveying Mosquito Creek Reservoir with a telescope counted a variety of ducks and more than 2,000 American coots.

Babyak said gulls are usually numerous around the reservoir, but that day only 47 were seen. Crows must have sensed the drop in temperature for only 43 were counted.

In the western part of the local counting circle were snow buntings, horned larks and a rare lapland longspur which were seen in manured farm fields.

The count included five robins eating crabapples, 41 Eastern bluebirds, 48 cowbirds, one red-breasted nuthatch and 27 bald eagles, which included 12 adults and 15 immatures.

Babyak said the first count was held on the east coast in 1900, and all the results of past counts can be viewed on the National Audubon Web site.

“This is the longest-running data base on bird populations in the world,” Babyak said.

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