Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) 2024

These past few days I have been part of a worldwide event called the Great Backyard Bird Count. Organized by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology it encourages everyone to document the birds they see in their own backyard and submit a checklist to their database called eBird. All they require is that you watch for 15 mins and document what you see and if you see the same old birds, that's perfectly OK too. I have been doing GBBC on and off for many years now with my daughter. This year I had to fly solo as she is almost 3000 miles away and I had to overcome a lot of inertia to get going. But I am so glad I did it. Besides the karmic points of contributing data to one of the largest citizen science projects in the world, it also reminded me of the simple joy of seeing birds in our own neck of the woods. GBBC is also a breath of fresh air because for these 4 days people from all over the world come together united by their love for birds. As I am writing this post collectively we have documented the presence of nearly 7400 species of birds. My adopted country and the country of my birth lead in the number of checklists. We see checklists from Israel and even a few from Palestinian territory, from Ukraine and Russia.

I managed to hit 50 species by the third day today and have been rewarded with so many fantastic sightings of birds just doing their thing. I am not a photographer by any means, but I have been lugging my giant Nikon DSLR which captured all these pictures despite my lack of skill and upper body strength. Most of these are taken in the San Elijo Lagoon which is my favorite spot to bird in San Diego. 

The highlight for me has been capturing Ospreys fishing

Here are some other raptors I saw these past few days

Cooper's

Red-shouldered Hawk

A kestrel trying to chase the Red-Shouldered

The Kestrel triumphed in chasing away the bigger hawk

A Red-tailed hawk circled so close to my head

 

This time of the year we get to see a lot of waterfowl in the lagoon. Here are a few

Male Bufflehead

Female Buffleheads

Redhead

Here are some grebes

Pied-Billed

Eared Grebes

Western Grebe

More waterfowl

Ring-Necked Duck

Lesser Scaups

Ruddy duck

A pair of Shovellers

I saw a number of smaller birds too but am not quick with the camera and couldn't capture all the warblers I saw. In some cases all I heard was the song. But here are a few I managed to capture

A bushtit busy at work. Yep he is upside down!

A butter-butt (yellow rumped warbler)  

Kingbird (Cassin's?)

Recent reports on migratory species have been documenting the alarming decline of migratory species around the world. Habitat loss, pollution, over-exploitation and not to mention climate change are all disrupting the lives of countless species. To share the world with so many species is a blessing and these past few days has been a reminder of that. I only saw/heard 50 species of birds this week and that is a very small percentage of the species of birds seen in one of the most biodiverse counties in the US but this was a much needed shot in the arm for me and gave me a lot of hope.

I close this post with the song of the Red-Winged Blackbird. Let's hope he sings forever!