Red-necked Grebes made a notable incursion into the Willamette Valley with a total of 14, including five in Portland, four at Sauvie Island, and three in Forest Grove.Ī well-described Pelagic Cormorant in Gresham, up the Columbia River from Portland, was a remarkable find for this young count. An Eared Grebe on Joseph Lake was another rare winter species for Wallowa County. Five Barrow’s Goldeneyes went the opposite direction to be counted at in a coastal estuary at Yaquina Bay.Ĭommon Loons winter mainly in coastal waters, but one turned up in Wallowa County in the northeast corner of the state, and three were at Utopia. A Long-tailed Duck showed up even farther inland in Klamath Falls. Sea ducks found inland in the Willamette Valley included a White-winged Scoter and three Surf Scoters in Portland, and another Surf Scoter in Forest Grove for count week. A Eurasian Wigeon in Utopia was a rare bird for east of the Cascades. And as always happens, interesting birds were discovered!īoth a Eurasian Green-winged Teal and an intergrade Eurasian x American Green-winged Teal were in a teal flock at Yaquina Bay. Still, the CBC served one of its core functions in getting people out to appreciate birds, at a time when people were hungry for any kind of community-spirited event. Thus this year’s results were even more skewed than usual to populated areas of the state, and coverage often deviated from traditional sectors, limiting comparability with non-pandemic years. Remarkably they came up with 115 species, just six species shy of the previous year’s total. After one count in Corvallis was officially canceled, there was so much grassroots interest that the count wound up proceeding on an ad hoc basis, with single-household teams fanning out to cover the circle and using digital communications to avoid overlaps. There turned out to be a very strong appetite for participation, even with the need to stick to smaller-than-usual teams and skip the traditional countdown gatherings. Only the Willamette Valley region, home to most of the state’s population, managed to run all active counts. In northeastern Oregon, the two Baker County counts remained dormant partly due to difficulty of finding a new compiler in a plague year, but four other counts went ahead. West of there in the Siskiyou region of inland SW Oregon, four of five active counts went ahead, but only seven of 11 counts in central Oregon took place. The Klamath Falls count also went ahead with a scaled-down crew. Of four counts in the Great Basin, two were canceled but the Burns and Malheur NWR counts managed to proceed with local volunteers. Along the Pacific coast, only three of the nine active counts happened, and the only active count in the Coast Range was canceled. The pandemic had a major effect on coverage, especially for counts in less populated parts of Oregon that rely on volunteers to travel long distances.