46 People Participated In 100th Count
The 2025 Christmas Bird Count for the Lexington Count Circle was conducted on Saturday, Dec. 20.
This year marked the 100th Lexington Area Christmas Bird count and the 89th consecutive count.
The first Lexington Area Christmas Bird Count was conducted by Merriam Lewis in 1922. That year Lewis counted 240 individuals and 24 species, and he covered about 6 miles on foot and 8 miles by auto (as a comparison – for the 2025 count, 46 individuals participated and covered a total of 50.9 miles walking and 253 miles by auto).
Between 1922 and 1937, 10 counts were conducted. No count data are available for several of those years, and it is possible that counts were conducted. No count was conducted in 1936 as noted by JJ Murray in Bird Lore magazine.
There has been a Lexington Area Count every year since 1936. In the late 1920s, Dr. J.J. Murray, pastor of the Lexington Presbyterian Church and later one of the founding members of the Virginia Society of Ornithology, became involved in the count and served as the coordinator until 1970.
From 1970 until 2007, Dr. Bob Paxton, now a retired Columbia University professor, and George Tolley, a retired U.S. Forest Service scientist, served as count coordinators. In 2007, Dr. Dick Rowe, now a retired VMI professor, became the coordinator.
According to Bob Paxton, a number of local naturalists and expert birders became involved in the count since the early 1960s. Locals such as Col. Robert “Doc” Carroll, Royster Lyle, George Tolley, Polly Turner, John Pancake and Paul Cabe contributed to the count through these years.
The Christmas Bird Count is directed by the National Audubon Society. All Christmas Bird Counts are scheduled for a single day during the month of December. Volunteer participants try to count all birds within a 15-mile diameter circle. Beginning in 1950, the Lexington count circle was centered on Washington and Lee University’s campus, but in 1974 the count circle was recentered at Big Spring pond on U.S. 60 west of Lexington. The value of the Christmas Bird Counts is that a “snap shot” of species and individuals in a given area is taken each year and trends in populations can be identified for an area or for the country, overall.
Summarizing all of the 100 counts, a cumulative total of 132 species have been identified on the specified count day. In general, about 65 of the 132 species are regularly seen in the county during the winter. The other species are winter migrants that stop through the area and sometimes over-winter or are small groups or individuals that are “wandering” through the area.
This year count day, which began at 6 a.m. for those parties searching for owls, was partly cloudy. The temperatures began in the mid 20s and warmed up into the mid 40s by the end of the day. A total of 73 species and 5,278 individual birds were identified this year on count day. The number of species is less than the 10-year average of 76 species, and the number of individuals counted is also less than the previous 10-year average of 8,909. This year the birds were scattered and appeared to be less numerous because food was plentiful in the fields and woodlots.
This year’s count was highlighted by the presence of a Swainson’s thrush (only the second count record), two snow geese (fourth count record), and 29 bald eagles (the most ever counted). Swainson’s thrushes are often seen during fall migration, but they are usually not present after mid-November. Snow geese are common during the winter along the Chesapeake but are very unusual in our area during the winter (there are fewer than 20 records of them since the 1950s). Prior to 1992, no bald eagles were seen on count day, but since 2003, they have been seen every year. The increase in bald eagle populations in the eastern US is due to conservation efforts by a number of agencies.
This year’s participants were as follows: Wayne, Julian, Diana, Amanda and Audrey Dymacek; Harris and George Wolfe; Mitch Fridley; Lyle Walker; Ken Dubel; Jerry and Glenda Jackson; Terri Bsullak; Dick and Barbara Rowe; Lucy Rowe-Stanfill; Christa and Zach Bowden; Nancy Gray; Vic Crane; Sue Piepho; Cinder Stanton; Danny and Susan Hoehne; Lisa and Jackie Gay-Milliken; Steve and Susan Hodapp; Bob Biersak; John and Sarah Burleson; Rene Hasey; John Pancake; Ann Olson; Laura Neale; Kip Brooks; Elise Sheffield; Bonnie Bernstein; Julia Robinson; Julia Rest; Wendy and Steve Richards; Claudette Artwick; Paul and Lock Cabe; Nathan Bowden; John Maluski; and Kit Huffman.
This year’s complete count was as follows: snow geese, 2; Canada goose, 334; Gadwall, 9; mallard, 59; American black duck, 2; green-winged teal, 10; ring-necked duck, 6; hooded merganser, 102; common merganser, 226; wild turkey, 61; pied-billed grebe, 2; rock pigeon, 185; mourning dove, 101; great blue heron, 12; black vulture, 92; turkey vulture, 181; northern harrier, 8; sharp-shinned hawk, 3; Cooper’s hawk, 3, unidentified accipiter species, 1; bald eagle, 29; red-shouldered hawk, 21; red-tailed hawk, 30; American barn owl, 3; Eastern screechowl, 15; great horned owl, 4; barred owl, 1; belted kingfisher, 11.
Also, red-bellied woodpecker, 58; yellow-bellied sapsucker, 32; downy woodpecker, 38; hairy woodpecker, 11; Northern flicker, 28; pileated woodpecker, 19; American kestrel, 7; Eastern Phoebe, 9; Blue Jay, 258; American crow, 474; fish crow, 8; common raven, 19; Carolina chickadee, 104; black-capped chickadee, 4; unidentified chickadee species, 21; tufted titmouse, 126; horned lark, 5; ruby-crowned kinglet, 10; golden-crowned kinglet, 49; cedar waxwing, 111; red-breasted nuthatch, 5; whitebreasted nuthatch, 128; brown creeper, 6; Carolina wren, 89, winter wren, 4.
Also, Northern mockingbird, 73; European starling, 653; Eastern bluebird, 100; Swainson’s thrush, 1; hermit thrush, 28; American robin, 112; house sparrow, 6; house finch, 85; purple finch, 39; American goldfinch, 52; field sparrow, 20; fox sparrow, 6; dark-eyed junco, 170; white-crowned sparrow, 14; white-throated sparrow, 328; Savannah sparrow, 8; song sparrow, 79; swamp sparrow, 8; Eastern wowhee, 17; Eastern meadowlark, 18; yellow-rumped warbler, 116; and Northern cardinal, 209.
