Prepared by David L. Suddjian
Santa Cruz Bird Club Bird Records Keeper
dsuddjian@aol.com

Prepared December 20, 1999

I'm always interested to see how our irruptive land birds fare from one
winter to the next. In Santa Cruz County there are 10 species that are of
regular occurrence (i.e., not rarities or occasional visitors) that generally
have an irruptive pattern. Some years these species are numerous, other years
they are sparse (or, as for the crossbill and grosbeak, even absent).

The recent Santa Cruz County CBC conducted on December 18, 1999 provided some data
that can be used to evaluate this year's situation at the beginning of the
winter season. The count circle is centered at Henry Cowell S. P. and
includes the coast from Davenport to New Brighton S. B., and extends inland
to include Bonny Doon, Boulder Creek, Scotts Valley, and all the watershed of
the main stem of Soquel Creek.

For the 10 species listed below I compared this year's count to the recent
10-year average. Counts of all these species are strongly affected by field
effort, so I standardized the data by dividing the raw numbers by total party
hours (tph). The tph for 1999 was 224. The average tph for the recent 10-year
period was 194.

All the species were found to be below average, except for the Cedar Waxwing,
which was a little above average. Based on my past review of data from Santa
Cruz County, it is unusual to have most species well below average. More
typical is a "mixed bag" of some high, some average, some low.  I wonder how
these results compare to other areas in the region?
 
 

	1999 Count	10 Yr Avg	% of Avg (standardized)
Red-br. Nuthatch	10	22	40%
Golden-cr. Kinglet	46	73	55%
Hermit Thrush	161	200	70%
Am. Robin	3044	3912	67%
Varied Thrush	129	232	48%
Cedar Waxwing	1073	752	123%
Red Crossbill	16	25	54%
Pine Siskin	114	335	30%
Am. Goldfinch	267	566	41%
Evening Grosbeak	3	15	17%