55th Annual Putah Creek Christmas Bird Count

Hammond’s Flycatcher ©Julian Johnson

The 55th Yolo Bird Alliance – Putah Creek Annual Christmas Bird Count, was successfully completed on December 21, 2025. While unseasonably warm, yet rainy and windy, we were able to cover all 10 count areas with 30 teams led by experienced birders and accompanied by new or less experienced birders. Despite the rain we ended up with 85 participants!

Weather: Most of the day we experienced a light to moderate drizzle, with parts of the count circle covered in fog throughout the day. In the afternoon the weather cleared up in the lower parts and became almost pleasant. While gusty and rainy, temperatures ranged from 55 to 62 degrees.

Highlights: Despite the rain we were able to count 144 species which is exactly within the expected range of 140 to 150 species. 

For the first time on the CBC we had a Hammond’s Flycatcher, found by the team of Julian Johnson and Ethan Matsuyama in Area 5. A Swamp Sparrow (1) which had been around in preceding weeks, was found in its usual spot on the banks of Lake Solano in Area 9 by Judy Allen and Mike Reinhart. A beautiful Red-naped Sapsucker (1) was found by Daniel Karp, Joe Zeno, Kyle Elshoff, Robert Furrow in Area 8. Two Common Loons (2) were found by Tom Uslan on Lake Berryessa. Sean Smith and Samuel Schmidt found a Black-throated Gray Warbler (1), also at Lake Solano in Area 9. The “obligatory” American Dipper (1) was found in its usual spot in Area 4 by Kirk Swenson, Arthur Amezcua and Jason Umphress.

High and low counts: Over the past years we have witnessed a dramatic increase in Turkey Vultures with this year hitting an all time high of (574). This sustains the strong positive (and likely climate change related) trend observed in our count circle. An identical trend can also be observed in the Audubon regional CBC data.

Several waterfowl, gull and shorebird counts also ran well above typical levels: American Herring Gull (31), Northern Shoveler (30) and Greater Yellowlegs (56). The latter two observations seemed to be related to the lower than usual levels of Putah Creek and Lake Solano. Horned Lark which were abundant last year (1119) were close to absent (1) this year. 

LNU Fire recovery:
Species that were severely affected by the 2020 LNU fires such as Wrentit (35) continued their recovery though still way below their pre-fire counts of an average of 75-100. California Thrasher (0) were not encountered on the count day but observed later in the week. Despite this, they continue to be extremely low in comparison to pre-fire counts when we typically observed 20-30. Only one Pileated Woodpecker (1) was found.

Owling: Historically our count circle has led the nation in record high numbers for Great-horned Owls during CBCs. Given concerns about potential double counting, we are following a rigorously laid out protocol that makes sure this doesn’t happen. This year we followed that same protocol but, in contrast to last year,when we broke our all time record (156), we only had (24) Great Horned Owls. We also only had (3) Barn Owls (3).  Western Screech-Owls (16) seemed to be less fazed by the weather. The last known burrow of Burrowing Owls appeared to have been run over with a mower just before the count. We only found the chopped-up remnants of a Burrowing Owl, which was truly sad and disturbing.

Our eBird TRIP REPORT with 146 checklists for the day provides a more detailed overview of the species that were counted. Note that some species counts have been adjusted in the final compilation due to overlapping observations by different areas. As a result the numbers on eBird may differ a bit from the final tallies.

The 15-mile diameter count circle is centered southwest of Winters, California. It is divided into 10 areas and spans parts of Yolo, Solano, and Napa Counties (view in Google Maps).