Results of a Fall Bird Count and Fall BirdBlitzes Conducted in the Upper Cumberland Region during 2010

Data for 142 species of birds were collected during efforts—including one Fall Bird Count (FBC) and two Fall BirdBlitzes (FBB)—to monitor the birdlife of the Region this fall.  This total eclipses the highest collective totals achieved on Regional FBCs and FBBs conducted during 2009 (141), 2008 (141), 2007 (133), 2006 (139), and 2005 (135).  In the table below all 142 species are listed with data from the various counts following the species' names.

    The FBC conducted in White County, TN, was the 7th consecutively there while the FBBs in DeKalb County, TN, and McCreary County, KY, were the first ever in those counties. To see a map of the Region highlighting counties where the FBBs and the FBC were conducted, click on the following link:

• Map of UCR Showing Location of Fall Bird Surveys

    Loggerhead Shrikes were tallied on the Regional counts in DeKalb and White counties, TN, this season; this species is slowly and seemingly inexorably disappearing from the Regional bird scene and joining two other formerly fairly common and one formerly rare species now absent or almost absent from the Regional avifauna: Red-cockaded Woodpecker (formerly rare), Bewick's Wren (formerly fairly common), and Bachman's Sparrow (formerly fairly common).  Of course, the disappearance of these species from the Region was preceded by the Regional extirpation (and range-wide extinction) of the Carolina Parakeet, the Passenger Pigeon, and possibly the Ivory-billed Woodpecker.

    Some species such as Golden-winged Warbler that were registered during the fall surveys are undergoing long-term decreases in their Regional populations, but the detection of probable migrants from outside the Region on the fall surveys masks the true nature of their Regional status.  The fact that the fall surveys resulted in the counting of some Golden-winged Warblers is not necessarily a positive sign for the small Regional breeding population of this species.

    On the positive side of the avifaunistic ledger, we can see in the fall survey data modestly good numbers of some species that had become rare or very uncommon in the Region as a result of hunting pressure during the early decades of the Twentieth Century, three of these being Canada Goose, Wild Turkey, and Great Blue Heron. Significant increases in the populations of the first two species during the past three decades resulted from reintroduction efforts and presumably from more ethical hunting following reintroduction, while increases in the population of the latter species during that same period probably resulted from increasing protection afforded by such legislation as the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act and associated state-level protective measures.  The fall survey data also reveal the continuing presence of some non-game species that invaded the Region during the last half of the Twentieth Century, such as Blue Grosbeak, and the presence of one small-game species, Eurasian Collared-Dove, that has invaded the Region in the past couple of decades.

    Some bird species undergo irregular irruptions tied to food resource availability in parts of their ranges.  For instance, the Red-breasted Nuthatch is prone to occasional southerly irruptions during winter.  The appearance of this species on all three of the Region's fall surveys indicates that such an irruption event is underway, probably as a consequence of a poor food crop in eastern Canada.  Whether the nuthatch irruption will be followed by irruptive movements of other boreal species during the coming winter remains to be seen.

    The Regional fall survey data for most years are too few and thus too coarse-grained to allow us much of a glimpse of the migratory patterns for most species that occur in the Region as other than permanent residents.  By viewing the fall survey data below as a means of gauging the waning numbers of summer residents over the three-week period of time covered by the fall surveys or as a means of gauging the waxing numbers of winter residents over the same period of time, we obtain in most cases a somewhat obscured picture of these migratory events.  To bring clarity to this picture, the Region's FBCs and FBBs will probably need to increase to about ten well spaced out events each fall.  With data from that number of surveys in hand, the migratory "pulse" for each species will be much more evident than it is in the data below.  Despite the coarse-grained nature of the following data, a rough image of the migratory pattern of some species can be discerned.  For instance, the data for Winter Wren and Hermit Thrush reveal that they were absent from the White and DeKalb county counts but present in low numbers on the McCreary County count; these data fairly accurately reflect the arrival of these winter residents during the beginning of their stay in the Region each fall.  By scanning the data below for other migrants, you can judge how well the 2010 fall data reflect what we currently know about each species' migratory pattern during fall.  In some cases the data are moderately accurate, but in others they just do not tell us much about the species' migratory pattern.

    For greater detail about the results of the Fall Bird Count (FBC) in White County, Tennessee, and the Fall BirdBlitzes (FBB*) in DeKalb County, Tennessee and McCreary County, Kentucky, or to return to the central node for FBCs or to the BirdPage, click on one of the following links:

Key to compilers: DAD = Douglas A. Downs; MJH = Michael J. Hawkins; and SJS = Stephen J. Stedman.

* A Fall BirdBlitz (FBB) differs from a Fall Bird Count (FBC) only in that the former is not an annually repeated count, while the latter is.

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