Nearly a Century of Counts
Bronx Westchester Christmas Bird Count 1924-2024
The Bronx Westchester Christmas Bird Count has been taking place since the Bronx County Bird Club first strategized their count plan in 1924 - only 24 years after the first Christmas Count was started by Frank M. Chapman.
EXCEL Spread Sheet of all birds 1924-2024
Past Compiler Write -ups 1988-2024
The Bronx-Westchester CBC celebrated its 101st count on Sunday, December 22, 2024.
Results
The teams found 120 species. It was a cold and windy day with a low of 13 F degrees and a high of only 22 F degrees. Winds were out of the northwest,10-20 mph.
Highlights were:
Greater White-fronted Goose, 7th count record
2 Cackling Goose
All three Scoters
1 Red-necked Grebe
1 Wilson's Snipe
2 Greater Yellowlegs after missing it for six years
1 Laughing Gull
Great Egret in Rye
A Northern Saw-whet Owl in Kings Point
3 Northern House Wrens
25 American Pipit - a 74 year high!
5 Chipping Sparrow
4 Baltimore Oriole, 1 at a Hastings feeder, 1 at a Yonkers feeder and 2 together in the West Bronx
2 Orange-crowned Warbles, 1 in Sprain Ridge in Yonkers and the other in East Bronx
1 Palm Warbler
15 Eastern Screech-Owl, tied high count from 2001
New High Counts:
33 Bald Eagles (30 in 2021)
12 Pileated Woodpecker (9 in 2020)
2317 Dark-eyed (Slate col.) Junco (1852 in 2016)
Other Highs:
Thirty-five year high for Northern Harrier (9)
Twenty-two year high for Great Black-backed Gull
Twenty-three year high for Fox Sparrow
Twenty-four year high for Swamp Sparrow
Twenty-three year high for Northern Cardinal
Lows:
We had an all-time low of only 16 Common Goldeneye
Fifty-eight year low for Great Cormorant, only 13
Count week birds included American Coot, Virginia Rail, Savannah (Ipswich) Sparrow, Lincoln’s Sparrow, Clay-colored Sparrow.
NEXT YEAR’s COUNT will be SUNDAY, December 28, 2025
Michael Bochnik, Bronx-Westchester CBC Compiler
results of prior years
Past compiler write-ups and results are available HERE.
The National Audubon Society maintains a database of all Christmas Bird Counts, starting with the very first. This is a massive citizen science undertaking which provides important information about the status of bird populations.
You can find results of previous Bronx-Westchester Christmas Bird Counts by accessing the database maintained by National Audubon. You will need to enter our count code: NYBC.
all the birds ever
This is a downloadable MS Excel file of all bird seen on all Bronx Westchester Christmas Bird Counts, thanks to Michael Bochnik’s superb record keeping
More about Christmas Bird Counts on National Audubon’s web site