2025 Lewis County CBC Results
By Rachel Holland, WALC Compiler
Though the weather was annoying and unpredictable for many of us, with bouts of soaking rain and wind followed by calm skies, 40 amazing volunteers still committed themselves to the event and tackled everything our local fields, feeders, forests, trails, roads, and sidewalks had to offer. We had a wonderful variety of people helping us with the count this year, from new-to-CBC volunteers, to ones who had never birded in our circle before, to those who have diligently covered the same areas for years; so many great souls participated and made the 2025 Lewis County Christmas Bird Count one to remember!
Our previous record for the number of species seen in our circle on Count Day was set in 2023, with 109 species seen. That year saw 3 very rare birds added to the count for the first time, too! This year, severe flooding ravaged the land shortly before our count date. Luckily, the most severely impacted areas cleared out before Count Day on December 20th, but there was still a lot of standing water in flooded fields, which certainly caused a good bit of displacement for a number of birds. Regardless, despite the floods and the rains and the howling winds, we managed to head out there and tally a record-breaking 110 species!
What’s more, in our species data, we had a stunning 13 High Counts, 4 Tied High Counts, and 2 Count Firsts!
Between us, we tallied 22,490 individual birds in our Count Circle, which is on par with our usual numbers, often around 20,000. The passerine vs. non-passerine numbers were a near 50/50 split this year, as well.
Our Count Firsts included a single calling Greater Yellowlegs as it winged its way over a field, and a very clearly heard Sora. An out-of-season Band-tailed Pigeon was seen again this year, a species that debuted on our count just last year.
Our High Counts included the following:
Greater White-fronted Goose: 9 (only the 2nd ever reported on our CBC, with the first being a single goose in 2021), Ring-necked Duck: 1078, Greater Scaup: 6, Lesser Scaup: 117, Bufflehead: 364, California Quail: 18, Mourning Dove: 471 (a whopping 279 more individuals than our average), Barred Owl: 2, Red-breasted Sapsucker: 12, Downy Woodpecker: 19, Black Phoebe: 9, Chestnut-backed Chickadee: 216, and Brown Creeper: 27.
The Tied High Counts were quite interesting:
Canada Goose: 1184 (Tied with 2019), Bald Eagle: 61 (Tied with 2020), White-throated Sparrow: 5 (Tied with 2023), and Horned Grebe: 1 (Which is technically tied for highest with our only other Horned Grebe, seen in 2021).
Though there were no hard and true Low Counts (such as 20 when we normally get 2,000), there were a few low numbers. Once again, we dipped on Wood Duck, a species that seems to have been dwindling here in the winter over the last few CBCs. Townsend’s Warblers came in at just 2 individuals, and though we usually get more than that, on two years we had none at all. Many birds had just a single sighting, tying them with other years with single sightings (such as Peregrine Falcon, Northern Shrike, Northern Saw-whet Owl, Great Egret, and Orange-crowned Warbler). Red Crossbill also had just a single bird this year, but we have gone without them completely for many years.
This year, we also had several interesting hybrid/intergrade birds that were new to the count, but not quite a pure species. We had our very first (and long overdue) Yellow-shafted x Red-shafted Flicker, a Eurasian x American Green-winged Teal, a Redhead x Ring-necked Duck, and a Tufted Duck x scaup sp. We also had several other fun types or subspecies of other birds, such as our first Harlan’s Red-tailed Hawk!
Woodpeckers overall did great this time; in addition to the two High Counts, Pileated Woodpeckers and Northern Flickers were at their 2nd highest in number, with 2 and 139, respectively. Many species were right around their average numbers, which is awesome! Overall, the numbers were very good for nearly every species here, and then some!
After the count, many of us met for a fun, warm dinner at The Quesadilla Factory.
A huge thank you to all of our volunteers near and far; without you, none of these amazing birds would have been counted, and the wonders of our Count Circle would never get to be shared with the world at large.
Photo credit: A Fluffy Mourning Dove on Count Day, by Rachel Holland.
