Aransas National Wildlife Refuge hosted the National Audubon Society's 106th Christmas Bird Count on Thursday, December 29, 2005.

The National Audubon Society founded the century old institution on Christmas Day, 1900, when they organized an event consisting of teams competing to see who could coint the most birds. The count has grown in popularity since it's inception, serving an important scientific function about population trends and environmental conditions. The Christmas Bird Count is the the longest running ornithological database-100 percent volunteer-generated data that has become crucial to the government's natural history monitoring. Count data from1900 to the present is available through the BirdSource at www.birdsource.org a cooperative project of the National Audubon Society and the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology.

Letter from CBC Compiler Barbara Bruns:

Dear CBC Participant,

Good weather, great birds and excellent bird-finders rounded out the count day. Most noted and possibly a first for this CBC count was that we had a five owl species day.
Early morning hour sightings: Short-eared Owl, Barn Owl, Great Horned Owl, Eastern
Screech-Owl and late day------a Burrowing Owl. Very, very exciting! Robins weren’t as plentiful as last year. Stranger yet, was the absence of Cedar Waxwings which in 2004 we had a record amount seen.

The final tally of the 106th Audubon Christmas Bird Count held at the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge on December 29th, 2005 was 172 species with an additional 7 species reported during count week. We exceeded the 2004 day tally by 6 species and due to finds during count week were able to increase that total also. Total number of individuals was 34,030.

The 32 exclusives of the count circle are:

Area 1…Wood Duck, Stilt Sandpiper, Eurasian Collared-Dove, White-winged Dove,
Northern Flicker(Yellow-shafted), Tufted Titmouse, Eastern Bluebird, PineWarbler.
Area 2…Semipalmated Plover, Yellow-crowned Night Heron.
Area 3…American Oystercatcher, Ruddy Turnstone, Bonaparte’s Gull, Black Skimmer.
Area 4…Black-necked Stilt.
Area 5…Ring-necked Duck, Hooded Merganser, American Woodcock, Eastern Screech-Owl,
Vermilion Flycatcher, Cave Swallow, Wilson’s Warbler, Yellow-breasted Chat,
Spotted Towhee, Eastern Towhee, Nelson’s Sharp-tailed Sparrow.
Area 7…Short-billed Dowitcher, Barn Owl, Short-eared Owl, Plumbeous Vireo,
Grasshopper Sparrow.
Area 8…Burrowing Owl.

FAMI and the Refuge staff greatly appreciate your participation and contribution to the success of the CBC. There were 33 registered counters involved from---California, Colorado, Wisconson, Pennsylvania, Michigan, TX…Odessa, Elgin, Houston, Rockport, Port Lavaca, Port O’Connor, Victoria. Thank you again for your help.

The next CBC will be scheduled for December 2006 and we hope you will again support the effort to record this scientific data. Bring a friend next time and …Good Birding!

Best to All,

Barbara Bruns, compiler