Why do birders check the progress of the bird count

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Posted January 22

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Birding: Annual bird counts include interesting lingerers

Warmer York County especially holds a range of seasonal holdovers in the Christmas Bird Counts.

BY HERB WILSON

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The 117th Christmas Bird Count is now over. As usual in January, I will discuss the highlights of some of the Maine counts. These standardized censuses provide an important tool to monitor the abundance of winter birds throughout North America and beyond.

I’ll concentrate on changes in regularly wintering birds, the arrival of unpredictable invaders and records of lingering birds whose wintering areas are well to our south. A rarity or two may pop up as well.

We’ll start with the southern Maine coast. The York County count was held on Dec. 21. Thirty observers found 82 species of birds.