On December 28, 2014 Unalaskans held their annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count. This was Unalaska's twenty third consecutive count, part of an annual tradition held all across North America, since the year 1900. Our count day weather was cold and clear, no rain, no snow. We had sixteen adults and eight kids out and about, mostly along the coastlines, covering around 29 combined miles. We tallied 50 species on Count Day, and six more species were seen during Count Week, which includes the three days prior to and following a Count Day.

The big excitement was getting a Eurasian Siskin on our count, a mega rarity that has been in Unalaska since typhoon Nuri swept through the outer Aleutians last November. There are only two previous records of that bird in North America, and both those records are from Attu. So our Unalaska sighting is the first Eurasian Siskin ever to be seen on a Christmas Bird Count!

In all we had six new species that we've never had on Christmas counts before, including White-winged Crossbills, two warbler species, an Orange-crowned and a Townsend's, a Ring-necked Duck among our scaup flock, and out of the blue a totally unexpected Northern Harrier! So we are amazed at our results. Oddly, as many rare finds as we got, it was very quiet across the waters on count day, and birds that are present in the area just weren't being seen. Our gull count was under a hundred and our Emperor Goose count down by half, but it was simply count day conditions, very calm after a big blow went through. Thousands of Mew Gulls showed up later in the week and the number of Emperor Geese returning home for the winter looked healthy.

The camaraderie of a day spent outside, with friends scattered everywhere chasing birds, is hard to beat. When you multiply that effort by 2,300 count circles, with 60,000 participants from coast to coast, a far bigger picture emerges. Each of us becomes part of one of the world's most extensive databases of bird population trends, and our contributions are something to be proud of. So as always, great thanks are extended to our lively bird counters, for their tallies as well as their cheer!

The results of our count are below.

Emperor Geese 628; Mallard 14; Green-winged Teal 69; Canvasback 1; Ring-necked Duck 1; Greater Scaup 101; Steller's Eider 125; Harlequin Duck 1,128; White-winged Scoter 90; Black Scoter 684; scoter species 136; Long-tailed Duck 115; Bufflehead 61; Common Goldeneye 33; Barrow's Goldeneye 2; Common Merganser 11; Red-breasted Merganser 215; Pacific Loon 6; Common Loon (count week) Yellow-billed Loon 1; Horned Grebe 5; Red-necked Grebe 15; Double-crested Cormorant 2; Red-faced Cormorant 2; Pelagic Cormorant 170; cormorant species 54; ; Bald Eagle 566; Northern Harrier 1; Sharp-shinned Hawk ( count week); Merlin 2; Peregrine Falcon 1; Rock Ptarmigan (count week ); Black Oystercatcher 31; Rock Sandpiper 131; Mew Gull 10; Glaucous-winged Gull 40;  Glaucous Gull 2; gull species 40; Common Murre 79 ( many more offshore); Thick-billed Murre ( count week), Pigeon Guillemot 199 ( many more offshore); Marbled Murrelet 31; Least Auklet ( count week); alcid species 25; Belted Kingfisher 3; Black-billed Magpie 1 ( here since October); Common Raven 225; Pacific Wren 12; American Dipper 4; Orange-crowned Warbler 1; Townsend's Warbler 1; Fox Sparrow 1; Song Sparrow 26; Golden-crowned Sparrow 4; Snow Bunting (count week); Gray-crowned Rosy Finch 327; White-winged Crossbill 2; Common Redpoll 17; Pine Siskin 3; Eurasian Siskin 1!