Some time ago I got a question from a six year old about birds.  It’s the kind of question that many people might wonder about, but only a six year old would ask it. “How many birds are there in the whole wide world?”, Harry, who lives in Somerville, MA, asked.  I took a crack at it and this is the result (full disclosure: Harry shares a lot of my DNA).

Dear Harry, You have asked a hard question and I will give it a try, but it is a LONG answer. The hardest question is the biggest—how many birds in the whole world? We are not even sure how many different kinds of birds there are in the world. The answer to that is about 10 thousand. Several of these kinds, or species, number over 3 billion in the world. Probably the most common, if you don’t count chickens that we raise for eggs and food, is the House Sparrow.

There are lots of kinds of birds that are very common, including some sea birds that spend their whole lives flying around the ocean except when they are having babies on some tiny island. That makes them very hard to count correctly. All together the total number of wild birds in the world is somewhere between 100 billion and 400 billion! The fact that there is such a big difference in those numbers shows how hard it is to count them all.

Even though there are a lot of birds in the world, you should know that there are some birds that are very rare.  Scientists call them endangered, which means that if we are not kind and helpful to them they might disappear.  For example one bird that lives in the forests of Brazil in South America, the Stresemann’s Bristlefront, has gotten so endangered that there are only 15 of them in the whole world!

The estimate for the total number of birds in the United States is around 10 billion in the spring but more like 15 billion in the fall after the babies have hatched.

Right here in Boston I can give you the EXACT number of birds that were present (or at least seen) in Boston on Sunday December 16, 2012.  That was the day that a whole bunch of birders spent all day going around places like Jamaica Plain and Somerville counting every pigeon, every sparrow, every goose and every cardinal and writing it down.  Here is a funny little fact about the Boston Christmas Bird Count (BCBC)—which has been going for more than one hundred years—the very center of that circle is the Healy School playground in Somerville!  So some day you can go with your parents and stand in the very center of the BCBC counting circle for birds and see how many birds you can see, That game is called a “Big Sit” among us crazy birders.

Anyway, here is the report of the count of birds reported that day in December, listed by species (the rare ones are CAPITALIZED):

Boston Birders The 40th Greater Boston Christmas Bird Count (actually the 112th—Belmont, Jamaica Plain and Winchester have been covered since the very first CBC in 1900!) was held yesterday (Sunday, December 16) under some difficult weather especially after the noon hour. That did not damper the 102 observers in the field.  The total number of species recorded was 125 plus SEVEN count week species (listed as CW)

We added TWO new species to the overall count—SORA RAIL and PAINTED BUNTING bringing the historical count to 228 species—AMAZING for an urban count. We had six new high counts (listed as HC) Highlights are capitalized and a brief location is indicated.  Photos of  many of these birds will be sent for documentation to National Audubon Society.

  • Brant  106
  • Canada Goose  7545
  • Mute Swan  56
  • Wood Duck  2
  • Gadwall  1 CW
  • American Wigeon  1
  • American Black Duck  702
  • Mallard  2160
  • Northern Shoveler  7
  • Northern Pintail  2
  • Green-winged Teal  22
  • Green-winged Teal (Eurasian)  1
  • Canvasback  10
  • REDHEAD  5- Hammond Pond
  • Ring-necked Duck  123
  • Greater Scaup  348
  • Lesser Scaup  4
  • KING EIDER 1- Dorchester Bay
  • Common Eider  1046
  • Surf Scoter  257
  • White-winged Scoter  1244
  • Black Scoter  10
  • Long-tailed Duck  32
  • Bufflehead  406
  • Common Goldeneye  111
  • BARROW’S GOLDENEYE  1- JFK Library, S. Boston
  • Hooded Merganser  560  (High Count- HC)
  • Common Merganser  467 (HC)
  • Red-breasted Merganser  411
  • Ruddy Duck  132
  • Wild Turkey  56
  • Red-throated Loon  43
  • Common Loon  31
  • Pied-billed Grebe  15
  • Horned Grebe  71
  • Red-necked Grebe  3  LOW
  • Double-crested Cormorant  11
  • Great Cormorant  7
  • Great Blue Heron  49
  • Turkey Vulture  CW
  • Northern Harrier  2
  • Sharp-shinned Hawk  9
  • Cooper’s Hawk  20
  • BALD EAGLE 1 adult  Chestnut Hill Res
  • Red-tailed Hawk  71
  • VIRGINIA RAIL  1- Oasis, E. Boston
  • SORA  1  NEW TO COUNT- the Oasis, East Boston
  • American Coot  151
  • KILLDEER  2
  • Greater Yellowlegs  3
  • Sanderling  8
  • Purple Sandpiper  3
  • Dunlin  7
  • Wilson’s Snipe  2
  • Bonaparte’s Gull  13
  • Ring-billed Gull  2070
  • Herring Gull  1451
  • Iceland Gull  1
  • Lesser Black-backed Gull  1
  • Great Black-backed Gull  204
  • THICK-BILLED MURRE 1 Spectacle Island
  • RAZORBILL  8
  • Rock Pigeon  1508
  • Mourning Dove  529
  • Eastern Screech-Owl  51
  • Great Horned Owl  15
  • SNOWY OWL 3  Logan Airport
  • BARRED OWL  12  (HC)
  • Short-eared Owl  CW- Logan Airport
  • NORTHERN SAW-WHET OWL 1  Putterham, Brookline
  • Belted Kingfisher  11
  • Red-bellied Woodpecker  55  (HC)
  • Yellow-bellied Sapsucker  2
  • Downy Woodpecker  310
  • Hairy Woodpecker  23
  • Northern Flicker  41  (HC)
  • PILEATED WOODPECKER 1- Middlesex Fells
  • American Kestrel  3
  • Merlin  7
  • Peregrine Falcon  9 (Tied HC)
  • NORTHERN SHRIKE  1  Deer Island
  • Blue Jay  462
  • American Crow  499
  • Fish Crow  CW  a BIG miss
  • Common Raven  3 (tied HC)
  • Horned Lark  30
  • Black-capped Chickadee  903
  • Tufted Titmouse  280
  • Red-breasted Nuthatch  44
  • White-breasted Nuthatch  276
  • Brown Creeper  17
  • Winter Wren  10  (HC)
  • Marsh Wren  2
  • Carolina Wren  80
  • Golden-crowned Kinglet  36
  • Ruby-crowned Kinglet  7
  • Hermit Thrush  7
  • American Robin  2969
  • Gray Catbird  1
  • Northern Mockingbird  127
  • European Starling  10431
  • AMERICAN PIPIT  3  Point of Pines, Revere
  • Cedar Waxwing  37
  • LAPLAND LONGSPUR  2 Bear River, Saugus
  • Snow Bunting  176
  • BLACK AND WHITE WARBLER  1  Olmsted Park
  • Orange-crowned Warbler  1
  • NASHVILLE WARBLER  1  Fenway Victory Garden
  • MACGILLIVRAY’S WARBLER 1  Fenway Victory Garden
  • Yellow-rumped Warbler  8
  • Yellow-breasted Chat  3
  • Eastern Towhee  2
  • American Tree Sparrow  171
  • Clay-colored Sparrow  CW- Busa Farm
  • Field Sparrow  3
  • Savannah Sparrow  9
  • Fox Sparrow  CW
  • Song Sparrow  529
  • Swamp Sparrow  15
  • White-throated Sparrow  419
  • Dark-eyed Junco  1262
  • Northern Cardinal  364
  • PAINTED BUNTING 1- NEW TO COUNT- Thompson Island
  • Red-winged Blackbird  54
  • RUSTY BLACKBIRD  3  Lexington
  • Pine Grosbeak  CW
  • House Finch  211
  • RED CROSSBILL  21
  • WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILL  27
  • Common Redpoll  65
  • PINE SISKIN 1
  • American Goldfinch 496g
  • House Sparrow  3324

You will have to get some help from your mom or dad to add all those numbers up.  Papa is too lazy for that. But you can see that on that day there were _over ten thousand starlings_counted which was way more than the House Sparrow at only 3,324. Maybe next year you can help us count all the birds, starting from the very center!

I hope you like this very big answer to a very big question

–Papa