A local group of birders joined forces to make a list of area birds as part of the national Christmas Bird Count on New Year’s Day, tallying 1,239 individuals.
That number of feathered denizens was a significant increase from last year, when the group counted 734 birds of various species.
The group fanned out around the Interlaken area, including Drew Lake, Kelly Lake, Paulsen Road and elsewhere.
Headed up by Jo Ann Baumgartner, Executive Director of Wild Farm Alliance, the 6-hour adventure this year tallied 51 species.
“In 2025, we birded for 11 hours, noting 67 species and 734 individuals,” she said. “In 2022, we birded for 9 hours, noting 64 species and 784 individuals.”
Among their findings were 100 American wigeons, 3 northern pintails, 7 buffleheads, 19 wild turkeys, 1 white-tailed kite, 3 turkey vultures, 2 great blue herons, 2 northern shovelers, 31 California quails, and 133 coots.
The count got its start through the 120-year-old National Audubon Society, whose goals include preserving bird habitats, scientific research, helping to influence commonsense conservation laws, and protecting natural resources that “birds and people depend on.”
According to NAS, “prior to the turn of the 20th century, hunters engaged in a holiday tradition known as the Christmas ‘Side Hunt.’ They would choose sides and go afield with their guns—whoever brought in the biggest pile of feathered (and furred) quarry won.”But observers and scientists were “becoming concerned about declining bird populations.” On Christmas Day, 1900, “ornithologist Frank M. Chapman, an early officer in the then-nascent Audubon Society, proposed a new holiday tradition—a “Christmas Bird Census that would count birds during the holidays rather than hunt them.”
