C&O Canal Midwinter Bird Survey

Thanks to all who participated in the twelfth annual C&O Canal Midwinter Bird Survey on Saturday, January 23rd, 2010. Click here to enter data for the 2010 count.

DC Audubon's most ambitious birding activity, the C&O Canal Survey aims to provide a true picture of winter birdlife along the entire 184.5 miles of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park, from Georgetown to Cumberland. It has become a welcome institiution for regional birders and is starting to provide interesting year-to-year and mile-to-mile comparative distributional information. Tallies of species and numbers are recorded on a mile-by-mile basis using the mileposts along the towpath.

Read the reports from 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007.

Checklist for 2009 count: COchecklist2010.doc

Count data are available in Excel spreadsheet format. They will print legibly on six 8.5"x14" pages, numbered left to right (ascending mile-segments of the Canal) and then top to bottom (non-passeriforms and passeriforms). Each page displays a species column, a mile-segment row, and a row with initials of the reporting observer. Column totals are the number of species and numbers of individual birds in a mile-segment. Row totals are, for each species, the total number counted and number of mile-segments in which any were observed. Comparative aggregate data from previous years is also shown on a separate page. The mile-segments are numbered starting with "0", and thus correspond to the milepost marking the downstream terminus of that sector. This numbering seems to be the least confusing way to report segments covered, and to correlate with the maps and descriptions in Hahn's Towpath Guide and High's C&O Canal Companion. The order of species is the same as on the checklist provided to participants.

Year	File
1999	COfinal99.xls
2000	COfinal00.xls
2001	COfinal01.xls
2002	COfinal02.xls
2003	COfinal03.xls
2004	COfinal04.xls
2005	COfinal05.xls
2006	COfinal06.xls
2007	COfinal07.xls
2008	COfinal08.xls
2009	COfinal09.xls

Follow the link to view a year-by-year summary of count totals.