The annual Oak Hill Christmas Bird Count (WVOH CBC) for the National Audubon Society was held Saturday, December 20, 2025. Sixteen volunteers took to the roads and trails, and five monitored their yard feeders for a combined total of 43.75 hours and 117.15 miles of birding. The volunteers observed 64 species and tallied 1746 individual birds.
The American Crow took the top spot for abundance this year with 333 individuals, though that wasn't a high record for the species. Other consistently abundant species included the American Goldfinch at 149, and Dark-eyed Junco at 124.
Record-breaking tallies came from two species with "Common" in their name, but they proved to be anything but ordinary during the 47th year of the WVOH CBC: the Common Merganser with 5 individuals counted, and the Common Raven with 30 individuals counted. In the count's 47-year history, the Common Merganser had been observed only four times, and the Common Raven more than doubled its previous high record. Interestingly, and a spectacular sight for anyone, this Common Raven count included an early morning flock of 21 in-flight, in a wingtip-to-wingtip, single-line formation. Ravens sometimes fly with wingtips touching during aerial bonding behaviors and are known to congregate to roost.
An unexpected data point was the absence of Mallards. Since 1990, the WVOH CBC had recorded between 5 and 92 Mallards annually. This year marked the first time since 1989 that this species was missing from the report.
