The American Birds Christmas bird count results arrived in
my mailbox today. I have extracted following all time record
national high counts tallied by counts in our region for
Christmas Counts. Oregon and Washington rank 10th and 11th
for all-time high counts (Washington was 8th this last year
for high counts).

The final number is the count number (to get the year, subtract
1 and add 1900).

Red-necked Grebe 635 Oak Harbor, WA 94
Western Grebe 26230 Bellingham, WA 92
Sooty Shearwater 1500 Tillamook Bay, OR 50
Leach's Storm-petrel 6 Tacoma, WA 96
Trumpeter Swan 1570 Skagit Bay, WA 93
Brant (Black) 27927 Padilla Bay, WA 92
Blue Grouse 28 Cottage Grove, OR 76
Surfbird 1280 Corvallis, OR 95
Sanderling 25500 Willapa NWR 45
Dunlin 95500 Grays Harbor, WA 77
South Polar Skua 1 Florence. OR 89
Mew Gull 20000 Tillamook Bay, OR 74
Slaty-backed Gull 1 Sauvie Island, OR 93 and 98
Glaucous-winged Gull 16391 Portland, OR 62
Sabine's Gull 1 Coos Bay, OR 79 and 82
1 Tillamook Bay, OR 96
Arctic Tern 2 Portland, OR 34
Pigeon Guillemot 1221 Sequim-Dungeness, WA 90
Ancient Murrelet 1007 Coquille Valley, OR 96
Red-lored Parrot 91 Walla Walla, WA 91
Snowy Owl 79 Padilla Bay, WA 74
Red-breasted Sapsucker 59 Eugene, OR 91
Clark's Nutcracker 270 Spokane, WA 71
Northwestern Crow 3120 Eugene, OR 58
Golden-crowned Kinglet 1822 Olympia, WA 90
Bohemian Waxwing 15000 Spokane, WA 62 and 67
Northern Shrike 54 Padilla Bay, WA 97
MacGillivray's Warbler 2 Eugene, OR 68
Fox Sparrow 943 Florence, OR 87
Oregon Junco 4468 Eugene, OR 75

A couple of these records are worth comment, starting with
the record I know best... 28 Blue Grouse on the Cottage Grove
count. The participant who turned in that number almost
certainly spent most of the day lost on logging roads outside
the count circle (and no, it wasn't me, but a certain TB, who
others of the era may remember).

Ninety-one Red-lored Parrots is almost certainly and entry
error (or an overturned semi on I-90 carrying smuggled pets).

The most intriguing number is 3120 Northwestern Crows in
Eugene. Anyone on-line who participated in the 1957 Eugene
count care to comment on how Eugene beat out Alaska for a
record on NW Crows?

Exactly 15000 Bohemian Waxwings on 2 separate Spokane counts
seems a statistical unlikelihood. Had I been compiling you
would have seen 14995 one year and 15004 the other...

--
Mike Patterson Alas, to wear the mantle of Galileo,
Astoria, OR it is not enough to be persecuted
celata at pacifier.com by an unkind establishment,
you must also be right.
---Robert Park
http://www.pacifier.com/~mpatters/bird/bird.html