West Sonoma County Bird Count 2025

This year, Madrone Audubon’s annual West County Christmas Bird Count (CBC) took place on December 28, 2025. It was a brisk, clear day that followed nearly a week of rain. Madrone’s counting circle had 94 counting volunteers who covered 18 territories. By the end of the day, the number of bird species counted was 170. This tally is up from last year when our teams observed 159 species. Most of the bird species that were not seen this year were shorebirds and ducks.  

The number of individual birds, however, was down. Last year, we counted a total of 28,811; this year, just 21,840. The lower individual count was partly due to the fact that one territory lacked a leader and was not covered, but many of the teams also observed fewer numbers of some expected species. 

According to Ken Wilson, Area 2’s leader, the team counting Bohemian Highway found, “no unusual birds for the day, generally low numbers, with woodpeckers and raptors barely showing.” The adjacent territory between the towns of Freestone, Bodega, and Valley Ford was covered by the Area 3 team, who saw fewer hawk and sparrow species than usual, but plenty of other songbirds, including Ruby-crowned Kinglets, Pygmy Nuthatches, Brown Creepers, and Western Meadowlarks. The town of Freestone was especially lively with a flock of a couple dozen Townsend Warblers. One of the highlights of their day was an immature Bald Eagle that flew over and then parked itself on a hillside above the Valley Ford wetlands. 

Jennifer Michaud, whose team visited the area around the Estero Americano (Area 6), says that they had: “Beautiful weather after the fog cleared. Nice ferruginous hawk and lots of kestrels. Good showing of robins, bluebirds, and hairy woodpeckers. Lots of deer, a few jackrabbits, a treefrog, and American badger holes too!”  

In Duncan Mills and Jenner (Area 16), the team’s leader reports that: “Some of the exciting birds were a juvenile wood duck, a belted kingfisher, a varied thrush, and a hooded merganser. We continued to the Russian River Bridge in Jenner to investigate the wetland areas at the intersection of Hwy 116 and Hwy 1. We got a great visual of the Virginia Rail bouncing around in the cattails and willows. One of the most amazing thing we experienced was the display of sea gulls at the Jenner Headlands. Normally, we struggle to count and identify all of the seagulls on the shore next to the Russian River outlet. Instead, we saw zero seagulls on the shore.”

The one rarity of the count was a Northern Parula, spotted by the Salmon Creek Road team (Area 5).   

A concerted effort was made this year to count the owls in our circle. Between the various teams, we found Barn Owls, Great Horned Owls, as well as one Northern Pygmy Owl and one Western Screech Owl. We even identified three Spotted Owls. The night before count day, a team set out along Coleman Valley Road to get a head start on our numbers. As they neared the end of the evening, team members were joking that they had a count of four calls—one dog and three cows. At that final stop, they were finally treated to a delightful and lengthy song from a Spotted Owl, their only owl of the night. 

Thank you to all of this year’s leaders and counters!