ANNA MARIA ISLAND – On the eighth day of Christmas, the Audubon Society counted 12 palm warblers, 11 (plus eight) northern mockingbirds, 10 red-bellied woodpeckers, nine blue-gray gnatcatchers, eight common loons, seven house finches, six snowy egrets, five white ibis, four (plus two) house sparrows, three American white pelicans, two wood storks and a lesser black-backed gull.
The birds were tallied on a warm Jan. 2 by volunteers with the Manatee County Audubon Society during the annual Fort De Soto Christmas Bird Count, which includes birds on Anna Maria Island.
The team of Stu Wilson, John Ginaven, Kathryn Young, Marcy Klein and Pam Koepf scoured the Island north of 46th Street and found shorebirds commonly seen on AMI’s coastline, but also unusual finds, such as two bald eagles.
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They identified 48 species, a little low compared to the average of 54 species, Wilson said, attributing the decrease to continued warm weather in the northern U.S., keeping some birds from migrating south.
Each individual count takes place in a 15-mile-wide circle and is led by a compiler responsible for safely organizing volunteers and submitting observations to Audubon. Within each circle, participants tally all birds seen or heard that day – not just the species, but individuals, to provide a clearer idea of the health of that particular population.
The 112 years’ worth of data collected during the Christmas Bird Counts contributes to one of two large sets of data that inform ornithologists and conservation biologists about what conservation action is required to protect birds and their habitats.
Here’s the rest of the AMI bird numbers:
sandwich tern 180
fish crow 140
European starling 130
laughing gull 130
sanderling 110
royal tern 87
willet 57
ring-billed gull 45
brown pelican 42
common grackle 32
double-crested cormorant 24
red knot 24
mourning dove 23
osprey 21
Eurasian collared-dove 20
herring gull 20
Forster’s tern 18
nanday parakeet 17
brown-headed cowbird 14
ruddy turnstone 9
great blue heron 8
turkey vulture 6
red-breasted merganser 5
rock pigeon 5
great egret 3
downy woodpecker 2
black-bellied plover 2
prairie warbler 2
American kestrel 1
red-shouldered hawk 1
spotted sandpiper 1
magnificent frigatebird 1
blue-headed vireo 1
gray catbird 1
yellow-rumped warbler 1
