Vineeta and David,
I was surprised you said your numbers have dropped because I've been seeing
the W.T. Sparrows nearly every day since they arrived in October. And it's
been the same the last winter and several before that. BUT I decided to do
some checking and not just go by impressions. I've been counting birds for
Cornel's "Project Feeder Watch" for many years. They keep track of all the
entries so I went back to 2015 when I moved to my new house. The counting
season is from mid November to mid April. You count two days with five days
in between. Here's what I found. Below I wrote the average group size of the
2-day count and the highest number of the birds seen during any of the count
days. I hope the chart comes out looking okay.
2015 - 2016 Average group size 4.5 and highest 9
2016 - 2017 average 4.3 and highest 7
2017 - 2018 average 3.3 and highest 5
2018 - 2019 (so far) 2.7 and highest 4
So they are declining here!!
Nancy Young
Troutville, VA (Botetourt County)
near Roanoke
-----Original Message-----
From: Vineeta via VA-bird
Sent: Monday, February 4, 2019 10:30 AM
To: David Gibson
Cc: VA-BIRD
Subject: Re: [VA-bird] White-throated Sparrows
I've noticed a huge drop in numbers in my garden. And it makes me very sad.
Vineeta in Alexandria.
On Mon, Feb 4, 2019 at 9:45 AM David Gibson via VA-bird <
va-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Have folks in VA noticed a drop in numbers from previous years? According
to ebird,
https://ebird.org/science/status-and-trends/whtspa/trend-map-non-breeding,
the trend doesn't look good. I've seen almost zero on trips I've led.
Ironically, I had one bird in my yard this am. I also had a single bird in
Nov. All the above is highly unusual.
Dave Gibson
https://birdpartner.com/
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