2024–2025 Christmas Bird Counts

Authors

Don Paseka, Nebraska Ornithologists' UnionFollow

Date of this Version

3-2025

Document Type

Article

Citation

Nebraska Bird Review, volume 93, number 1, March 2025, pp. 22, 31–49.

Comments

Published by the Nebraska Ornithologists’ Union, Inc.

Abstract

For the second year in a row, all twenty CBCs [Christmas Bird Counts] were run during the 2024–2025 season. The weather was generally cooperative, although five circles reported fog and two others had rain. Branched Oak-Seward was postponed a week due to icy conditions on the originally scheduled day. The average high temperature for all circles on count day was 41 and the average low temperature was 22. Because December had remained relatively mild, there was a good deal of open water, which encouraged many species of water birds to remain. Consequently, most of the circles reported species totals higher than average, led by Lake McConaughy with 106 species. Five other circles found more than 80 species. The total number of species for all circles (153) is four more than the previous high of 149 from 2010. However, the total number of individuals (310,304) was fairly typical. There were 937 total party hours, with Lincoln accounting for 228 of them.

Thirteen species including Bald Eagle were counted in every circle, but 34 species were found in only one circle, and 17 of those were single birds. Three species new to Nebraska counts were White-faced Ibis, Eastern Kingbird and a very out-of-place Couch’s Kingbird.