The 2019 Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) is now behind us. We had great fun birding and send in our sightings to online. Some of our favorite memories of this year’s GBBC: the 5,000+ crows we counted amassing in Auburn at the end of the day as we drove to pick up our son who had been skiing at the Lost Valley ski area; the pure white snowy owl we saw with a group of other birders at the former Naval Air Station in Brunswick; several gorgeous male red-breasted mergansers at the boat landing in Bath; a surprising number of buffleheads bobbing in the icy water off Wiscasset’s waterfront; and the four dark-eyed juncos, and the two white-throated and two song sparrows that were at our feeder every day of the count.

Although the tallies don’t become official until after March 1^st , the deadline for all checklist submissions, the total number of checklists submitted worldwide this year is more than 192,000—more than 10,000 over the 2018 tally, with about 50 more species found (at least 6,500!). As we predicted in last week’s column, India did bump Canada out of the number two spot (of course, the U.S. is number one with 117,515) by submitting 16,338 checklists, two thousand more than Canada. We were amazed to see that 170 countries submitted at least checklist this year. It won’t come as a surprise to hear that a country in the bird-rich tropics—Colombia—registered the most species, with 1,086. Compare that to 671 species found in the U.S. this year.

As for Maine results, despite our call to birding action in the last column, the total checklists from our state decreased slightly, from 1,293 last year to 1,279 this year (maybe a few more late checklists will still be submitted before March 1 to change that). The good news is that Mainers still submitted more checklists during the count than did birders from all but six entire nations worldwide. We even submitted more checklists than the birder-saturated United Kingdom! And we still beat out New Hampshire, Vermont, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. Yes, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Quebec walloped us again as expected.

However, we can proudly point out that the number submitted from Lincoln County increased from 64 in 2018 to 82 in 2019. Despite that, the county came in 7^th for number of checklists, as participation elsewhere in the state was also strong – which is, after all, a good thing! Cumberland and York counties topped the list again this year.

Whatever the results, we all sure did have a good time and see some wonderful birds. In fact the total number of species found in Maine in just the four days of the 2019 Great Backyard Bird Count was a remarkable 107! The GBBC website is full of beautiful bird photos taken by participants here in Maine and around the world, and you can explore all of the bird sightings and stats you want at the website: http://gbbc.birdcount.org/

Enjoy! We’re already looking forward to next year’s Great Backyard Bird Count!

Jeffrey V. Wells, Ph.D., is a Fellow of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Dr. Wells is one of the nation's leading bird experts and conservation biologists and author of “Birder’s Conservation Handbook”. His grandfather, the late John Chase, was a columnist for the Boothbay Register for many years. Allison Childs Wells, formerly of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, is a senior director at the Natural Resources Council of Maine, a nonprofit membership organization working statewide to protect the nature of Maine. Both are widely published natural history writers and are the authors of the book, “Maine’s Favorite Birds” and “Birds of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao: A Site and Field Guide” from Cornell Press.