KINGSTON — Last month’s Christmas bird count saw record low numbers and variety of birds.

The 72nd annual Kingston Field Naturalists’ count took place around Dec. 15 and saw 60 participants in locations around the city and 70 more people watching the bird feeders in their backyards.

Bird watchers spotted 24,774 individual birds — less than half of the 20-year average — across the city, and 75 different species.

“Observers in the field and at the feeders reported a quiet year. A record low of 69 species were tallied by day’s end; six more species were added during ‘count week.’ This was significantly below the 20-year average of 101 species and the previous lowest count of 82 in 2017,” a summary of the count from the field naturalists stated.

Dec. 15 was cloudy with winds gusting up to 60 km/h and temperatures near the freezing point.

“Although small inland bodies of water were mostly frozen, the main lake was open and rough. Sixty participants in the field spent their day covering 860 kilometres of territory on foot or by car, while 70 feeder watchers spent almost 200 hours observing their yards,” the summary stated. Large numbers of Northern Cardinals, House Finches, American Goldfinches, Dark-eyed Juncos, Downy Woodpeckers and Blue Jays were recorded, but with inland lakes frozen over and the rough water on Lake Ontario, record low numbers of ducks were seen.

The 2017 bird count tallied a total of 35,819 birds from 86 identified species. That result was on par with the past five years of Christmas bird counts, but it was significantly lower than the 20-year regional average.

The Christmas count in Kingston, which began in 1964, is part of a continent-wide effort that dates back to 1900 when the National Audubon Society promoted a Christmas bird census as a substitute for a traditional hunt.

The Kingston count takes place within a circular area with a diameter of 24 kilometres that is centred on the tip of Garden Island and includes most of Wolfe Island and the city of Kingston between Grass Creek Park in the east and Collins Creek in the west.