2025 was the 126th year of the National Audubon Society’s National Christmas Bird Count, and the Jamaica Circle in Guthrie County saw many birds.

Iowa Department of Natural Resources Interpretive Naturalist and Educator Anne Riordan says that the Jamaica Circle has been around for roughly 50 years, and that she’s been the record keeper for the count for the past 13 years. She tells Raccoon Valley Radio what she and the 10 others who participated this year observed.

“Everything from bald eagles, to robins to bluebirds. One of our counters saw 438 horned larks. He said he was estimating, there could have been twice that many, but they moved pretty quickly. And I was fortunate to see a Carolina wren, which is not super common around here, but I did see that.”

Riordan mentions that with much of the standing water frozen, there weren’t a lot of waterfowl around, which caused the number they observed for the day to fall to 5,038. She adds that there were a total of 56 different species of birds.