Great Backyard Bird Count: Day 1

Today is the first day of the Great Backyard Bird Count, and it was a beautiful day for it. After a gray, windy week today was partly cloudy and calm. The view from our marina over towards Mt. Baker was a beautiful one:

Over the course of the afternoon I saw a respectable 16 species (plus one hybrid). That already tops the 13 species I saw at my parent's house in Portland during last year's GBBC weekend. Here's the results of my count today:

• Surf scoter - 2
• Bufflehead - 18
• Hooded merganser - 1
• Red-breasted merganser - 4
• Red-necked grebe - 1
• Double-crested cormorant - 8
• Mew gull - 2
• Western x glaucous-winged gull hybrid - 1
• Glaucous-winged gull - 10
• Rock pigeon - 5
• Belted kingfisher - 1
• American crow - 30
• Chestnut-backed chickadee - 6
• Red-breasted nuthatch - 2
• Song sparrow - 1
• Dark-eyed junco - 7
• House sparrow - 1

So far it looks like I'm the only person to submit any checklists from anywhere in San Juan County! Looking at the past couple of years, only about 5-10 lists get submitted for San Juan Island, during the GBBC, so I want to make sure to contribute. Despite the name, you don't just have to count birds in your literal backyard, so since I got a good count at the marina today I'll probably go out tomorrow and do a good search around the island to see how many species I can turn up. Two years ago when I did a mini big day on GBBC weekend I found 44 species, including a new life bird! We'll see what tomorrow brings....