*A Field Sparrow was spotted during the 2025 Madison-area Christmas Bird Count. This species has been seen only 14 other times in the 97 Madison CBCs (photo by Edgar Spalding).*

Each December 14 through January 5, birders in North America and beyond come together for the longest-running citizen science project in North America: the Christmas Bird Count, which started in 1900. The national effort is run by National Audubon Society, but there are thousands of counts done throughout the country, each coordinated by local birders, many of whom are volunteers.

The first Madison-area CBC was held in 1907, and they occurred on and off—22 times—until 1950. Since 1950, there has been a Madison-area count every single year, making this the 97th overall Madison-area CBC and the 75th consecutive. The Madison-area CBC was held on December 20, 2025.

The Madison-area CBC encompasses Madison and many of its suburbs, including Fitchburg, McFarland, Monona, and Middleton. There is a lot of great habitat within the circle, thanks to the abundance lakes, rivers, wetlands, natural areas, city and county parks, and the many backyards hosting bird feeders.

Volunteers are assigned areas, and they fan out in search of birds, trying to cover as much area as possible without double-counting birds.

The Madison-area count consistently has one of the highest number of participants in all of the CBC areas. For example, in 2024, we worked with 187 volunteers and ranked #9 for most volunteers out of 2,693 counts completed throughout Canada, United States, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Pacific Islands.

Most of our volunteers are in the field looking for and counting birds. We also have a lot of volunteers who spend time documenting the birds that visit their feeders. In addition, we held an accessible Indoor Sit and Birdwatching Event at the McFarland Public Library, with a group stationed indoors and looking out the windows for birds.

Each area within the Madison circle pools their groups’ data into one data sheet, and submits it to the main compiler (me!). Then I combine all of the areas’ data sheets into one complete data set. And it’s a lot of data. This year, these 218 birders counted 32,153 birds of 89 species!

*A group of birders at the UW-Madison Arboretum (photo provided by Chuck Henrikson).*

*A group of birders with the BIPOC Birding Club surveying in northeastern Madison (photo by Dexter Patterson).*

A quick look at a few species

It’s pretty fun to look at the data from over the years, though a person would need more expertise in analyzing data than me to make notable conclusions. I pulled the data for a few species and included them below. The green vertical line marks 1971, when the counts had more volunteers surveying for birds (at least 100 hours of effort). The more people looking for birds, the more likely you’re going to find more birds.

Each year the number of birders and weather conditions can really affect the number of birds and species observed. But, the charts below help illuminate general trends we can see in this dataset.

Canada Geese have been counted on 55 of Madison’s 97 Christmas Bird Counts, mostly after 1979.

Bald Eagles have been counted on 47 of Madison’s 97 Christmas Bird Counts, mostly after 1996.

Eastern Screech-Owls have been counted on 73 of Madison’s 97 Christmas Bird Counts, with highest observed numbers between 1984 and 2000.

*Eastern Screech-Owl photo by Niel Dieffenbaugh*

Purple Finches, native to Wisconsin, have typically been seen in low numbers during the winter, with the highest counts between 1957 and 1996. House Finches, native to western United States and which have naturalized in Wisconsin, dramatically increased in observed numbers after 1988.

*House Finch photo by Kelly Colgan Azar*

*Purple Finch photo by Kelly Colgan Azar*

After the Madison-area data set is finalized, it is combined with all of the Christmas Bird Counts done in North America and beyond for this year. And then THOSE data sets are combined with ALL datasets for the 126-year history of the Christmas Bird Count. These long-term and broad-scale data sets can provide powerful information for scientists asking a variety of questions.

A huge thank you goes out to our 23+ area captains who coordinated volunteers in their parts of town, submitted their data, and made this day a success. Another big thank you goes to the hundreds of other volunteers who spent a day earnestly looking for birds in the cold. You’re awesome!

Written by Brenna Marsicek, director of outreach and Madison-area Christmas Bird Count compiler

2025 Madison-area Christmas Bird Count results

Species tallied: 89 species + 1 count week species
Record count: 97 species in 2020
Number of individual birds: 32,153 birds
Number of field volunteers: 176
Number of feeder watchers: 42
Number of volunteer hours spent counting birds in that 1 single day: 356

Weather: high of 41 degrees, partly cloudy, 2-3 inches of snow cover, lakes frozen or partly open near moving water, winds 10-12 mph, no precipitation during the event.

If we don’t document a species on the count date, but birders find it 3 days before or after the date, we call it a “Count Week” bird—or CW. Those species don’t count toward our species total, but they do help us get a slightly better picture of species’ presence and absence during the winter.

Cackling Goose: 18
Canada Goose: 4,787
Trumpeter Swan: 25
Tundra Swan: 1,440
Gadwall: 145
American Widgeon: 6
American Black Duck: 33
Mallard: 4,671
Northern Shoveler: 305
Green-winged Teal: 6
Canvasback: 113
Redhead: 86
Ring-necked Duck: 67
Greater Scaup: 2
Lesser Scaup: 66
Harlequin Duck: 1 (rare! has only been seen on the CBC day 4 times!)
White-winged Scoter: 3
Long-tailed Duck: 1
Bufflehead: 126
Common Goldeneye: 2,062
Hooded Merganser: 5
Common Merganser: 509
Red-breasted Merganser: 5
Ruddy Duck: 4
Ring-necked Pheasant: 1
Wild Turkey: 477
Common Loon: 1
Pied-billed Grebe: 1
Great Blue Heron: 7
Northern Harrier: 3
Sharp-shinned Hawk: 3
Cooper’s Hawk: 34
Bald Eagle: 41
Red-tailed Hawk: 120
Rough-legged Hawk: 7
American Coot: 129
Sandhill Crane: 3
Gull spp.: 186
Ring-billed Gull: 175
Herring Gull: 466
Iceland Gull: 2 (rare! only the 10th time seen on the Madison CBC)
Rock Pidgeon: 335
Mourning Dove: 979
Eastern Screech-Owl: 3
Great Horned Owl: 7

Barred Owl: 6
Short-eared Owl: CW
Belted Kingfisher: 15
Red-bellied Woodpecker: 302
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker: 12
Downy Woodpecker: 348
Hairy Woodpecker: 134
Northern Flicker: 49
Pileated Woodpecker: 7
American Kestrel: 7
Merlin: 5
Northern Shrike: 3
Blue Jay: 345
American Crow: 615
Black-capped Chickadee: 1,075
Tufted Titmouse: 31
Red-breasted Nuthatch: 47
White-breasted Nuthatch: 386
Brown Creeper: 73
Winter Wren: 6
Carolina Wren: 4
Golden-crowned Kinglet: 17
Ruby-crowned Kinglet: 1
Eastern Bluebird: 14
Hermit Thrush: 2
American Robin: 514
European Starling: 2,76
Cedar Waxwing: 162
American Tree Sparrow: 345
Field Sparrow: 1
Fox Sparrow: 6
Dark-eyed Junco: 1,480
White-crowned Sparrow: 17
White-throated Sparrow: 88
Song Sparrow: 6
Swamp Sparrow: 1
Northern Cardinal: 696
Red-winged Blackbird: 22
Common Grackle: 8
Brown-headed Cowbird: 12
House Finch: 912
Purple Finch: 7
Pine Siskin: 24
American Goldfinch: 522
House Sparrow: 3,597