Utah’s birds face a world of challenges.
Climate change is disrupting migration patterns, potentially pushing them away from their usual homes. And as Utah’s population grows, development can eat up their habitat, too.
That’s why having extra eyes and ears to monitor bird numbers during the annual Christmas Bird Count is so important, said Danielle Finlayson, a wildlife conservation biologist with the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources.
Finlayson has been part of the nationwide citizen science survey for the past decade and will lead volunteers in the Cedar City version of the count on Dec. 20. It isn’t just about getting more people interested in birds’ welfare, she said. The data it collects is also essential to scientists.
“It's just fun to open up their eyes to the world of birding and to also make them feel like they are helping.”
The Christmas Bird Count — which runs from Dec. 14 to Jan. 5 — marks its 125th anniversary in 2024, offering a long-term view of how populations have changed over the years. For example, numbers from the count informed the 2019 study from Cornell University that suggests North America has lost nearly three billion birds since 1970.
Each of the two dozen count locations across Utah — from Bear Lake to St. George — has a 15-mile circular perimeter. Participants typically meet early in the morning, get their instructions from count leaders and then fan out in groups to different sections of that perimeter, marking the birds they see on a checklist. A few hours later, they come back together and compile the data.
The count’s methodology hasn’t changed much over the years, Finlayson said. That’s a good thing, because you want to be able to compare data from different years apples-to-apples.
“You're surveying the same spot every year, the exact same timeframe,” she said. “That kind of data is just really useful, especially when you have a dataset that goes back so far.”
Counting birds can also give scientists clues about the conditions of other animals, such as mule deer and pronghorn, that are more difficult to track. If declining bird numbers point to a problem with the habitat they share with large mammals, that could inform conservation actions.
“Birds are really great indicator species,” Bryce Canyon National Park Biologist Macie Monahan said. “So monitoring them and monitoring their population dynamics is a good indicator for stressors in the environment, like climate change or ecosystem health.”
Monahan will lead the Dec. 21 count at Bryce Canyon. One bird she plans to keep an eye open for is the Pinyon Jay. The jay’s usual pinyon-juniper woodland habitat relies heavily on natural wildfire, she said, so fire suppression has likely caused their habitat to dwindle. The park plans to launch its own surveys specifically tracking the jays in the near future, she said.
While Bryce Canyon isn’t home to any endangered bird species during the winter, she said the park is still eager to see what this year’s count says about how more common species, such as the Steller’s Jay and Clark’s Nutcracker, are faring.
Gathering this type of data takes on new urgency as climate change upends birds’ living conditions, said Cooper Farr, a community science manager with the National Audubon Society.
A recent Audubon report called Survival by Degrees suggests that around half of the bird species it studied in Utah are threatened by rising global temperatures. That includes common backyard varieties like Black-Billed Magpies, Mountain Chickadees and Yellow Warblers.
“Especially in Utah, we see birds [that] are facing all sorts of new conditions as a result of the changing climate,” she said. “We see drought, higher average temperatures — all of these things are causing shifts in the habitats that birds typically rely on.”
On top of that, research suggests that domestic cats kill billions of birds each year. Scientists also estimate nearly one billion birds collide with windows in the U.S. annually. Putting out poison to kill rodents can kill the carnivorous birds that eat those mammals, too.
Beyond being a part of the count and taking action against climate change, Farr said, there are plenty of things people can do to give birds a shot at a better future. Some examples include installing window film that prevents collisions, putting native plants in your yard, keeping cats indoors and managing rodents with measures other than poison.
Some types of birds have been hit harder than others in recent years, Farr said, including grassland birds, birds that eat insects and birds that rely on shoreline habitats. The Great Salt Lake’s diminishing water levels, driven by both human consumption and climate change, illustrates a local example of the stakes birds face. The lake and its surrounding wetlands are a vital stopover point for more than 12 million migrating birds.
“Without understanding the trends and what's going on with our populations and individual species,” Farr said, “we won't be able to make very good, informed decisions about what to do about the changing climate.”
