2013 CBC Summary

2013 Skagway CBC -- Saturday, 14 December

Summary

This bird count gave us our most challenging weather to date: the day before the count Skagway experienced a blizzard with strong north winds (up to 40mph), temps at 20F, and blowing snow. Overnight strong south winds (up to 45mph) warmed to the mid 40sF causing water over ice conditions at sea level, and avalanches along Klondike Highway - the road connecting us to the Yukon and our only road that traverses higher elevations.

Klondike Highway was closed on count day, which prevented our Yukon birders from participating this year, and prevented anybody from accessing higher elevation areas. We also had a low turnout of Skagway local participants, which resulted in 16 total participants for us this year. Low manpower plus the sloppy ground conditions and challenging weather meant is was difficult going for our field observers, and we were not able to visit many areas, especially on the hillsides, that we usually cover.

Shorelines were exposed to strong south winds overnight and early on count day, which can lead to waterbirds seeking refuge in more protected areas outside our circle. Those field observers looking over the bay did not see any rafts of waterbirds or large flocks of gulls. Our missing Yukon birders are the best at gull identification, which is reflected in this count's data as a higher proportion of "gull, sp." and fewer gull species identifications than normal.

In spite of all these challenges, we've got a pretty good count total of 27 species plus 2 count week birds. 858 individual birds were counted. No unusual species were seen on count day or during count week. No low count flags were assigned due to our effort being roughly 1/2 of normal, both for hours and mileage.

Thanks to everybody who counted, and to those who tried to get here but were stopped by the avalanches!

- Elaine

species list below - for detailed table of results, see "results by year" at bottom

--- view or download a PDF file of any specific year's results from 2003 to present: results by year

--- view or download a PDF file of multiyear summaries of Skagway CBCs: CBC multi-year results by decade