2021 CBC Summary

2021 Skagway CBC -- Saturday, 18 December

Summary

This year’s Skagway CBC demonstrated a weather phenomenon quite familiar to locals. A mere 3.5 miles apart as the raven flies, the towns of Skagway and Dyea seemed worlds apart to those who went outside looking for birds. Clear skies were the only weather they shared.

All day in Skagway air temperatures stayed steady at 18 to 19 F. The northeast winds roared down the valley, with official sustained speeds in the mid 20s mph and near constant gusts in the mid 30s mph. Around the corner in Dyea, it was dead calm and a cold air inversion settled over the area with air temperatures down to -3 F. The goldilocks spot was Nahku Bay, not too windy, not too cold.

Snowpack ranged from 2 to 18 inches, but no field observers made it to the higher altitudes this year. Overall, still waters were frozen solid, and moving waters were partly open (mostly frozen).

Nine (9) routes were covered by 8 field observers, including 2 hardy Canadians who came down from Whitehorse. Routes were covered by car, walking and a skier in Dyea. Three routes turned up a grand total of zero birds, special thanks to those who persevered without the positive feedback of bird sightings. Five (5) feeders were watched by 6 observers. There were some participants who did more than one route, or a route and a feeder. Our overall participation was 12 people on count day. Two others contributed observations during count week.

Twenty-seven (27) bird species were seen on count day. Count week gave us one more species, Redpoll sp., and we had one hybrid, the Glaucous-winged x Herring Gull. The total number of individual birds seen on count day came to 539.

Pacific Loon was flagged as a high count with 9 positive identifications and 3 more Loon sp. that were probably also Pacifics. Black-billed Magpie was flagged as a low count with 14 bird recorded, usually seen in the 20-50 range. Only 17 Pine Grosbeaks were seen scattered about on count day, but they came together as a flock of 50 seen in a yard during count week. Similarly, although no Redpolls were seen on count day, a flock of 50 were seen during count week. Only one Eurasian-collared Dove was seen on count day, with fewer being observed this winter than we’ve gotten used to seeing over the past few years.

Special note: a few more of our common birds have received “new” names. The Mew Gull is now officially the Short-billed Gull. The Northwestern Crow is has been lumped into the American Crow.

- Elaine

Species table, participants list, and links to data are below photos.

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