ANNA MARIA ISLAND – The 125th Annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count on Anna Maria Island was completed on Dec. 29 and counters found a few surprises.
“We were interested in what impact the hurricanes would have on this year’s numbers, but we actually logged more species than last year,” counter Bill Pelletier wrote in an email to The Sun.
Counters viewed 54 species of birds on the north end of the Island, including a new addition – a wild turkey.
“We had an unexpected addition of a wild turkey on the island,” Pelletier wrote. “Kitty (counter Kitty O’Neil) found it back in April and it is still around. This is the only one ever reported out here, in the wild.”
Pelletier wrote that one of a pair of nesting bald eagles didn’t make it through the storms.
“The other eagle is still around and advertising for a mate,” he wrote.
Counters recorded sighting 655 individual birds. The highest count of any species was 71 brown pelicans. Fourteen osprey were counted at the north end of the Island.
The count occurred in the Ft. DeSoto circle, a 15-mile diameter circle encompassing the north end of Anna Maria Island and Passage Key. In 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt established Passage Key National Wildlife Refuge to preserve nesting colonies of native seabirds and wading birds.
While the final numbers haven’t been tallied for the region, William Kaempfer said about half of the count’s total was found on Anna Maria Island.
“That included three species not seen across the channel in the Ft. DeSoto peninsula – brown-headed cowbird, gray catbird and tufted titmouse,” Kaempfer wrote.
The Audubon Christmas Bird Count has a long history. On Christmas Day 1900, ornithologist Frank M. Chapman, an officer in the newly-created Audubon Society, proposed a “Christmas Bird Census” that would count birds during the holidays rather than hunt them. The bird count is now held in locations throughout North America.
“The data collected by observers over the past century allow Audubon researchers, conservation biologists, wildlife agencies and other interested individuals to study the long-term health and status of bird populations across North America. When combined with other surveys such as the Breeding Bird Survey, it provides a picture of how the continent’s bird populations have changed in time and space over the past hundred years,” according to Audubon.org. “The long term perspective is vital for conservationists. It informs strategies to protect birds and their habitat, and helps identify environmental issues with implications for people as well.”
In addition to Pelletier, O’Neil and Kaempfer, Tom Bisko participated in the bird count.
