The leaves are starting to fall…it’s getting cold, and the birds have (mostly) migrated south to warmer climates. Migration continues but we have passed the main peak. We surveyed around Duke’s campus looking for bird carcasses in 7 buildings during 21 consecutive days (9/22-10/12). Before the survey we conducted a “clean-up” survey to reset the “bird death timer” and record bird deaths corresponding to each day. during the “clean-up survey” we found 10 birds belonging to 8 different species. Here are some:
During the official survey, we found 33 bird carcasses belonging to 14 different species. Most of these carcasses were found at CIEMAS. It’s worth highlighting Black-throated Green and Black-throated Green Warblers, both birds (somewhat) difficult to observe in Durham.
Not only do we have AWESOME volunteers that help us with these surveys, we also have tons of people who report birds from their buildings on campus! Big thanks to both of these groups of people, without them this project would not be so successful, THANK YOU!
Back to business, thanks to all the great people who report collisions outside of survey times, we managed to accumulate data all over campus during this Fall. These incidental observations resulted in 34 bird carcasses of 17 species, just as many as the surveys!
Here’s the overall total of bird carcasses found this Fall 2014, including clean-up day, official surveys, and incidental observations. the grand total was 81 carcasses belonging to 26 species!:
| Common Name | Quantity |
| American Goldfinch | 11 |
| American Redstart | 1 |
| Black-throated Blue Warbler | 2 |
| Black-throated Green Warbler | 1 |
| Brown Thrasher | 2 |
| Cape May Warbler | 1 |
| Carolina Wren | 1 |
| Chestnut-sided Warbler | 1 |
| Common Yellowthroat | 3 |
| Golden-crowned Kinglet | 2 |
| Gray Catbird | 8 |
| Gray-cheeked Thrush | 1 |
| Hermit Thrush | 2 |
| Northern Cardinal | 3 |
| Northern Mockingbird | 2 |
| Ovenbird | 3 |
| Red-bellied woodpecker | 1 |
| Red-eyed Vireo | 5 |
| Rose-breasted Grosbeak | 3 |
| Ruby-throated Hummingbird | 6 |
| Song Sparrow | 1 |
| Swainson’s Thrush | 1 |
| Swamp Sparrow | 1 |
| Unidentified | 9 |
| Veery | 1 |
| Wood Thrush | 4 |
| Yellow-bellied Sapsucker | 5 |
| TOTAL | 81 |
We will continue these surveys next Spring and Fall, let us know if you want to volunteer! And keep the bird reports coming!
Thanks to everyone who participated and helped, especially to our volunteers: Erika Zambello, Charlene Wu, Cassandra Pallai, Emily Blanchard, Sadie Runge, Anna Wilson, August Burns, Fan Zhang, Scott Winton, Anne Driscoll, Kelly Meehan, and Erika Hansen.
