Exploring the Ozarks Outdoors: freshare.net

Snow Geese Top the List in Arkansas’s Bird Count

By Arkansas Game and Fish

First posted on 04-15-2010


What is the most numerous bird in Arkansas? Many Arkansans may be surprised that the snow goose topped the 2010 list, although more than one east Arkansas farmer may comment, “I could have told you that.”

The Great Backyard Bird Count is an annual volunteer project administered by Cornell University with the cooperation of the National Audubon Society and Bird Studies Canada. It involved about 97,300 participants in the United States and Canada this year.

In Arkansas, 796 persons or teams compiled lists of birds they counted on Feb. 18-21.while snow geese are not backyard birds in the strict sense, the project rules were for observers to count the birds imagethey saw in one location.

The Top Ten for Arkansas partly agrees with the overall North America count this year, with snow geese an exception. In Arkansas, the 10 most numerous species, in order, were snow geese, American goldfinch, common grackle, dark-eyed junco, robin, cardinal, red-winged blackbird, starling, white-throated sparrow and mourning dove.

Over the nation and Canada, the Top Ten were northern cardinal, dark-eyed junco, mourning dove, downy woodpecker, blue jay, American goldfinch, tufted titmouse, house finch, American crow and black-capped chickadee. A highlight was one massive assembly of robins in St. Petersburg, Fla., estimated at 1,450,000 birds.

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