About the CBC

For over 100 years, the Audubon Christmas Bird Count (CBC) uses volunteers to track bird populations by holding local counts across North and South America. Counts are held between December 14 and January 5 and are composed of volunteers of all birding levels to count birds in the field and at their feeders. Volunteers count birds and tally them by species within a 15 mile diameter count circle. 

The Mitchell circle is centered roughly at the Corn Palace.  It encompasses parts of Davison and Hanson counties including the cities of Mitchell and Loomis. The Mitchell count circle can be found at https://arcg.is/1vb44L2.

After a 46 year hiatus, the Mitchell CBC was reinstated in 2013.  The first count was executed in 1957. Two more counts were executed in 1966 and 1967.

Count Summary

This year’s count took place on Saturday, December 14, 2024 and was the 12th consecutive year to hold the count since reinstatement. This was the first year I never saw any birds at my mom’s bird feeders all day long.

On the day of the count we had foggy conditions all day with freezing drizzle. Day time temperatures started at 25° F and rose to 30° F. The maximum wind speed was 5 mph out of the south. There was no open water other than some moving water.

A total of 17 people participated and all were adults. We had 7 groups of people who birded in the field and 9 groups that watched their feeders. Field groups spent 16 hours in the field observing birds.  In comparison the feeder watchers spent 34.25 hours watching birds at their feeders.

We had a total of 1,607 birds composed of 33 species for the count day. Both the total number of birds and number of species were lower than past years. There were an additional 7 count week species. Count week species are seen 3 days before or after the count day but not on the count day. The most abundant species was the rock pigeon at 427.

We added two new species to the count.  A pileated woodpecker was seen at a feeder on the edge of Mitchell and a yellow-bellied sapsucker was seen at another feeding station. Some misses included Cooper’s hawk, brown creeper, purple finch, horned lark, and lapland longspur. Both the pileated woodpecker and the yellow-bellied sapsucker were flagged as rare.

The best birds of the count were definitely the pileated woodpecker and the yellow-bellied sapsucker. The barred owl and short-eared owl were also very good additions.

We had no high counts which is not surprising since numbers were low this year.

I’ve composed the following tables:  Counts for the Year, Participants for the Year, Counts by Year, and Effort by Year.

Bird Counts for the Year

The following table contains counts for the Mitchell CBC. CW designates count week birds.

Species	Total
Snow Goose	CW
Canada Goose	CW
Wild Turkey	141
Ring-necked Pheasant	86
Rock Pigeon	427
Eurasian Collared-dove	18
Mourning Dove	1
Northern Harrier	2
Sharp-shinned Hawk	CW
Bald Eagle	1
Red-tailed Hawk	1
Rough-legged Hawk	3
buteo sp.	5
Great Horned Owl	1
Barred Owl	CW
Short-eared Owl	CW
yellow-bellied sapsucker	CW
Red-bellied Woodpecker	5
Downy Woodpecker	15
Hairy Woodpecker	10
Pileated woodpecker	1
Northern Flicker	9
woodpecker sp.	1
American Kestrel	1
Northern Shrike	2
Blue Jay	8
American Crow	9
Black-capped Chickadee	15
Red-breasted Nuthatch	3
White-breasted Nuthatch	12
European Starling	223
American Robin	268
Cedar Waxwing	47
House Sparrow	46
House Finch	56
Pine Siskin	16
American Goldfinch	66
American Tree Sparrow	14
Dark-eyed Junco	37
Harris’s Sparrow	2
Red-winged Blackbird	CW
Northern Cardinal	10
passerine sp.	45
Total	1607

Participants for the Year

The Mitchell CBC wouldn’t have been possible without the help of these volunteers.

Full Name	Field	Feeder
Doug Hansen	Field
Jeff Hansen	Field
Rick Hansen	Field	Feeder
Doug Hollum		Feeder
Dee Johnson	Field	Feeder
Dennis Leland	Field	Feeder
Sheri Leland	Field	Feeder
Jacob Leland		Feeder
Derrick Adams		Feeder
Chuck Adams		Feeder
Paula Mazzer	Field	Feeder
Chris Slaybaugh	Field	Feeder
Andrea Meyer	Field	Feeder
Scott Meyer	Field	Feeder
Tim Mullican	Field
Bonnie Orr		Feeder
Lonnie Wiess	Field

Counts by Year

This table contains counts by year for the last 9 years of the Mitchell CBC. Note, zero denotes count week species.

Species	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024
Snow Goose		0			7	0		75	0
Cackling Goose								25
Canada Goose	24	0			4	0		211	0
goose sp.								40
Wood Duck
Northern Shoveler								2
Gadwall				2				4
Mallard				40				34
Northern Pintail
Redhead				1
Lesser Scaup
Common Goldeneye							1	10
Common Merganser								204
Ruddy Duck				2
Wild Turkey	162	30	168	215	111	105	210	106	141
Greater Prairie-chicken		3
Ring-necked Pheasant	141	221	34	146	97	261	231	333	86
Rock Pigeon	131	631	55	323	545	128	59	117	427
Eurasian Collared-dove	179	37	35	45	85	70	35	30	18
Mourning Dove	2		0			2	20		1
Ring-billed Gull								0
Great Blue Heron								1
Northern Harrier	1		0			2			2
Sharp-shinned Hawk	2	2		2	3	1	1	1	0
Cooper’s Hawk	2	2	1	1	4			2
Northern Goshawk				2	1			1
Bald Eagle	6	8	1	9	3	10	3	4	1
Red-tailed Hawk	28	21	0	31	26	8	2	1	1
Red-tailed Hawk (Harlan’s)	1		0
Rough-legged Hawk	20	11	1	6	18	37	1		3
buteo sp.		1	1				3		5
Eastern Screech-owl	1	2		6	2
Great Horned Owl	5	7	0	14	10	5	3		1
Snowy Owl
Barred Owl				1					0
Long-eared Owl
Short-eared Owl						1			0
Northern Saw-whet Owl				1
Belted Kingfisher				1				0
yellow-bellied sapsucker									0
Red-bellied Woodpecker	8	5	4	13	9	9	9	10	5
Downy Woodpecker	27	18	9	34	15	30	27	23	15
Hairy Woodpecker	13	11	5	12	10	9	10	6	10
Pileated woodpecker									1
Northern Flicker	27	6	9	12	6	1	1	14	9
Northern Flicker (Yellow-shafted)		6	5		2	4	5
Northern Flicker (red-shafted)						1
woodpecker sp.									1
American Kestrel	6	3		4	4	1			1
Merlin	2	1		3				1
Peregrine Falcon						0
Prairie Falcon				1	1
falcon sp.			1	1
Northern Shrike	1	1		3	6			1	2
Blue Jay	73	37	20	73	70	39	22	14	8
American Crow	15	10	17	32	17	18	5	12	9
Common Raven
Black-capped Chickadee	24	15	11	53	40	78	10	13	15
Tufted Titmouse
Horned Lark	4	368	60	70	220	11	236
Golden-crowned Kinglet	4			3	1
Red-breasted Nuthatch	12	1	2	2	10	8	5		3
White-breasted Nuthatch	20	6	5	22	19	21	16	8	12
Brown Creeper			0	2	1	5
Carolina Wren					0
European Starling	6559	689	47	832	1188	447	135	55	223
Brown Thrasher			1
Eastern Bluebird	5			0
Townsend’s Solitaire	1			5
American Robin	261	118	14	6	204	152	310	71	268
Cedar Waxwing	70	157	84	140	76	45		40	47
House Sparrow	687	809	73	336	277	357	252	70	46
House Finch	49	128	38	27	115	25	75	26	56
Purple Finch	1		0	0	4	15	1	4
Common Redpoll		97	4		2
Red Crossbill					0		3
White-winged Crossbill		1
Pine Siskin		24	12	17	53	1		6	16
American Goldfinch	292	132	18	139	163	75	88	9	66
Lapland Longspur	30	50	20
Snow Bunting				8			3
American Tree Sparrow	456	413	11	49	433	41	20		14
Fox Sparrow								1
Dark-eyed Junco	83	172	50	123	100	60	97	41	37
Dark-eyed Junco (Slate-colored)		36	14	28	54	39	9
Dark-eyed Junco (Oregon)		8		4	1		1
White-crowned Sparrow					1	2	0
Harris’s Sparrow	1	1		6	11		1	2	2
Song Sparrow	1	1			4
Spotted Towhee					1
Western Meadowlark	6				9	1	14
Red-winged Blackbird	1212	1230	285	106	10122	450	141	125	0
Brown-headed Cowbird				2	13
Rusty Blackbird				19
Common Grackle					20		1	20
blackbird sp.					506			2
Yellow-rumped Warbler		1						1
Northern Cardinal	27	21	6	23	29	12	14	3	10
passerine sp.						23			45
	10682	5552	1121	3058	14733	2610	2080	1779	1607

Effort by Year

This table contains effort for all years of the Mitchell CBC.

Count Date	Count Year	Field People	Field Hours All	Feeder People	Feeder Hours	Count Day Species	Count Week Species	Count Species Total	Bird Total
12/23/1957	1957	2	9.00			25	0	25	1377
12/30/1966	1966	1	9.00			20	0	20	463
12/31/1967	1967	1	9.00			20	0	20	2885
12/26/2013	2013	17	52.50	6	13.25	47	2	49	10639
12/26/2014	2014	9	42.75	11	34.25	49	0	49	3560
12/26/2015	2015	20	37.25	14	29.00	49	6	55	4737
12/26/2016	2016	17	48.00	15	32.75	45	0	45	10682
12/26/2017	2017	17	47.00	4	13.00	42	2	44	5552
12/26/2018	2018	9	10.25	5	21.00	32	6	38	1121
12/21/2019	2019	13	47.50	17	29.00	51	2	53	3058
12/26/2020	2020	19	34.00	9	22.75	50	2	52	14733
12/26/2021	2021	17	28.00	11	27.75	38	3	41	2610
12/17/2022	2022	11	17.00	15	40.25	36	1	37	2080
12/16/2023	2023	9	29.75	16	35.25	44	2	46	1780
12/14/2024	2024	9	16.00	15	34.25	33	7	40	1607

Thank You

I’d like to give a big “Thank You” to everyone who helped with the count. This is a GROUP effort.  All who participated should be very proud of their work.

If you know anyone who would like to help with the count next year, send me their contact information so they can be included in all communications.

Jeff Hansen

CBC Compiler

jeff.hansen.sd@gmail.com

785.806.6917

Beginning in 2020 I started planting apple trees of various varieties that can survive in zone 4. I have images of the apples on iNaturalist and you can access them with the following list. When you click on the cultivar name it will take you to the iNaturalist observation showing you images of the cultivar.

Observed	Cultivar	Scientific Name
8/24/2022	Freedom	Malus domestica
7/22/2024	Yellow Transparent	Malus domestica

TablePress table

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Count Summary

This year’s count took place on Sunday, December 26, 2021 and was the ninth consecutive year to hold the count since reinstatement.

On the day of the count the skies were cloudy. Day time temperatures started at 13° F and rose to 35° F. The maximum wind speed was 22 mph out of the east. There was no open water other than some moving water.

A total of 25 people participated although many were small children. We had 4 groups of people who birded in the field and 7 groups that watched their feeders. Field groups spent 28 hours in the field observing birds.  In comparison the feeder watchers spent 27.75 hours watching birds at their feeders.

We had a total of 2,610 birds composed of 38 species for the count day. Both the total number of birds and number of species were lower than past years. There were an additional 3 count week species. Count week species are seen 3 days before or after the count day but not on the count day. The most abundant species was the red-winged blackbird at 450.

We added two new species to the count.  A peregrine falcon was seen during count week. A red shafted flicker was seen count day. Some misses included mallard, cooper’s hawk, merlin, lapland longspur, and snow bunting. The only rare species were the peregrine falcon and the red-shafted flicker.

Of note was the short-eared owl which hadn’t been seen on the count since the 1966.

Even though numbers were low, we had numerous high counts.  They include northern harrier (2), bald eagle (10), rough-legged hawk (37), black-capped chickadee (78), white-crowned sparrow (2), purple finch (15).

I’ve composed the following tables:  Counts for the Year, Participants for the Year, Counts by Year, and Effort by Year.

Counts for the Year

The following table contains counts for the Mitchell CBC. CW designates count week birds.

Species	Total
Snow Goose	CW
Canada Goose	CW
Wild Turkey	105
Ring-necked Pheasant	261
Rock Pigeon	128
Eurasian Collared-dove	70
Mourning Dove	2
Northern Harrier	2
Sharp-shinned Hawk	1
Bald Eagle	10
Red-tailed Hawk	8
Rough-legged Hawk	37
Great Horned Owl	5
Short-eared Owl	1
Red-bellied Woodpecker	9
Downy Woodpecker	30
Hairy Woodpecker	9
Northern Flicker	1
Northern Flicker (yellow-shafted)	4
Northern Flicker (red-shafted)	1
American Kestrel	1
Peregrine Falcon	CW
Blue Jay	39
American Crow	18
Black-capped Chickadee	78
Horned Lark	11
Red-breasted Nuthatch	8
White-breasted Nuthatch	21
Brown Creeper	5
European Starling	447
American Robin	152
Cedar Waxwing	45
House Sparrow	357
House Finch	25
Purple Finch	15
Pine Siskin	1
American Goldfinch	75
American Tree Sparrow	41
Dark-eyed Junco	60
Dark-eyed Junco (Slate-colored)	39
White-crowned Sparrow	2
Western Meadowlark	1
Red-winged Blackbird	450
Northern Cardinal	12
passerine sp.	23

Participants for the Year

The Mitchell CBC wouldn’t have been possible without the help of all of these volunteers.

Full Name	Field	Feeder
Mavis Anderson	Field	Feeder
Chris Anderson	Field
Mike Blaalid	Field
Hazel Blaalid	Field
Oliver Blaalid	Field
Jeanne Blaalid	Field
Anne Cross	Field
Ryan Cross	Field
Ellie Cross	Field
Maggie Cross	Field
Hunter Dunteman	Field
Oakley Hague		Feeder
Ella Hague		Feeder
Doug Hansen	Field
Jeff Hansen	Field	Feeder
Rick Hansen	Field	Feeder
Amanda Hegg	Field
Dennis Leland	Field	Feeder
Sheri Leland	Field	Feeder
Libby Olson	Field
Bonnie Orr		Feeder
Letha Rowley		Feeder
Barb Stolz		Feeder
Garrett Walter	Field
Tammy Wheeler		Feeder

Counts by Year

This table contains counts by year for the last 10 years of the Mitchell CBC. Note, zero denotes count week species.

Species	1967	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
Snow Goose				0		0			7	0
Canada Goose		0	50	0	24	0			4	0
Wood Duck				1
Gadwall								2
Mallard	43		225	2				40
Redhead								1
Lesser Scaup				3
Ruddy Duck								2
Wild Turkey		104	294	88	162	30	168	215	111	105
Greater Prairie-chicken		10				3
Ring-necked Pheasant	3	194	137	366	141	221	34	146	97	261
Rock Pigeon		112	495	435	131	631	55	323	545	128
Eurasian Collared-dove		68	95	54	179	37	35	45	85	70
Mourning Dove		9	1	0	2		0			2
Northern Harrier		1			1		0			2
Sharp-shinned Hawk		5	2	3	2	2		2	3	1
Cooper’s Hawk		2	1	3	2	2	1	1	4
Northern Goshawk		3		1				2	1
Bald Eagle		8	3	6	6	8	1	9	3	10
Red-tailed Hawk		15	24	19	28	21	0	31	26	8
Red-tailed Hawk (Harlan’s)					1		0
Rough-legged Hawk	1	16	3	2	20	11	1	6	18	37
buteo sp.						1	1
Eastern Screech-owl		4	1		1	2		6	2
Great Horned Owl	3	4	10	2	5	7	0	14	10	5
Snowy Owl			1
Barred Owl								1
Long-eared Owl			1
Short-eared Owl										1
Northern Saw-whet Owl								1
Belted Kingfisher			1	0				1
Red-bellied Woodpecker		5	9	9	8	5	4	13	9	9
Downy Woodpecker	2	19	30	32	27	18	9	34	15	30
Hairy Woodpecker		5	17	16	13	11	5	12	10	9
Northern Flicker		21	8	20	27	6	9	12	6	1
Northern Flicker (Yellow-shafted)	1					6	5		2	4
Northern Flicker (red-shafted)										1
American Kestrel		3	1	2	6	3		4	4	1
Merlin		2			2	1		3
Peregrine Falcon										0
Prairie Falcon				1				1	1
falcon sp.							1	1
Northern Shrike		8	3	2	1	1		3	6
Blue Jay	1	59	37	46	73	37	20	73	70	39
American Crow	90	12	54	57	15	10	17	32	17	18
Common Raven			1
Black-capped Chickadee	6	32	39	34	24	15	11	53	40	78
Tufted Titmouse				0
Horned Lark	100	43	255	444	4	368	60	70	220	11
Golden-crowned Kinglet		2	1	1	4			3	1
Red-breasted Nuthatch		3	3	3	12	1	2	2	10	8
White-breasted Nuthatch	1	10	17	20	20	6	5	22	19	21
Brown Creeper		8	7	1			0	2	1	5
Carolina Wren									0
European Starling	130	1339	286	445	6559	689	47	832	1188	447
Brown Thrasher							1
Eastern Bluebird				4	5			0
Townsend’s Solitaire					1			5
American Robin		1746	39	561	261	118	14	6	204	152
Cedar Waxwing		174	52	153	70	157	84	140	76	45
House Sparrow	1000	360	292	749	687	809	73	336	277	357
House Finch		61	33	108	49	128	38	27	115	25
Purple Finch				7	1		0	0	4	15
Common Redpoll			45	7		97	4		2
Red Crossbill									0
White-winged Crossbill						1
Pine Siskin		0	16	22		24	12	17	53	1
American Goldfinch	6	29	57	197	292	132	18	139	163	75
Lapland Longspur	1200	46	133	32	30	50	20
Snow Bunting		5	1	55				8
American Tree Sparrow	220	67	52	141	456	413	11	49	433	41
Dark-eyed Junco		278	96	136	83	172	50	123	100	60
Dark-eyed Junco (Slate-colored)	43					36	14	28	54	39
Dark-eyed Junco (Oregon)	4					8		4	1
White-crowned Sparrow			2						1	2
Harris’s Sparrow	14			5	1	1		6	11
Song Sparrow		2	3		1	1			4
Spotted Towhee									1
Western Meadowlark		4		3	6				9	1
Red-winged Blackbird		5720	597	410	1212	1230	285	106	10122	450
Brown-headed Cowbird		1						2	13
Rusty Blackbird				1				19
Common Grackle	13	3	1	2					20
blackbird sp.									506
Yellow-rumped Warbler		3		0		1
Northern Cardinal	4	14	29	26	27	21	6	23	29	12
passerine sp.										23
	2885	10639	3560	4737	10682	5552	1121	3058	14733	2610

Effort by Year

This table contains effort for all years of the Mitchell CBC.

Count Date	Count Year	Field People	Field Hours All	Feeder People	Feeder Hours	Count Day Species	Count Week Species	Count Species Total	Bird Total
12/23/1957	1957	2	9.00			25	0	25	1377
12/30/1966	1966	1	9.00			20	0	20	463
12/31/1967	1967	1	9.00			20	0	20	2885
12/26/2013	2013	17	52.50	6	13.25	47	2	49	10639
12/26/2014	2014	9	42.75	11	34.25	49	0	49	3560
12/26/2015	2015	20	37.25	14	29.00	49	6	55	4737
12/26/2016	2016	17	48.00	15	32.75	45	0	45	10682
12/26/2017	2017	17	47.00	4	13.00	42	2	44	5552
12/26/2018	2018	9	10.25	5	21.00	32	6	38	1121
12/21/2019	2019	13	47.50	17	29.00	51	2	53	3058
12/26/2020	2020	19	34.00	9	22.75	50	2	52	14733
12/26/2021	2021	17	28.00	11	27.75	38	3	41	2610

Thank You

I’d like to give a big “Thank You” to everyone who helped with the count. This is a GROUP effort. All who participated should be very proud of their work.

If you know anyone who would like to help with the count next year, send me their contact information so they can be included in all communications.

Jeff Hansen
CBC Compiler
jeff.hansen.sd@gmail.com
785.806.6917

Discovery

While leading a native plant walk at the Mitchell Prehistoric Indian Village in Mitchell South Dakota, Jeff discovered some Kentucky Coffee trees growing in a draw at the village. He knew they did not occur naturally this far north or west. The closest natural occurrence of them is in the very southeastern part of South Dakota.

Indian Involvement

Indians were known to use the seeds of the Kentucky Coffee trees. Is it possible they brought the trees to the Mitchell area over one thousand years ago? Learn more about the cultural uses by Native Americans.

Jeff is a native plant consultant and maintains his Kansas Native Plants website.  The site contains information on landscaping with native plants.

His Kansas Plant Identification Guide contains information on hundreds of native and introduced plants found in Kansas,

Handmade Plant Fiber Paper contains information on making paper from plant fiber found in Kansas.  Jeff offers a paper making class once a year in Topeka.