02 Jan 2025 Christmas Bird Count
Yellow-crowned night heron Nyctanassa violacea by Amy Koch
Christmas Bird Count
St. Augustine Alligator Farm rookery
December 14, 2025
4:45-6:00 pm
Each year, St. Johns Regional Audubon brings together a passionate group of birders to take part in a special tradition to count wading birds as they fly in to roost at our rookery at dusk. This effort is part of the Christmas Bird Count (CBC), an annual bird census conducted across the Western Hemisphere by volunteer birdwatchers and coordinated by the National Audubon Society.
The CBC provides invaluable long-term data that helps scientists track bird populations and inform conservation efforts, while also offering participants a rewarding and social way to connect with nature. Now the longest-running citizen science survey in the world, the Christmas Bird Count has been engaging communities and supporting bird conservation for over a century.
Wild bird species identified at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm hotspot can be viewed on Cornell Lab’s eBird website.
2025 Christmas Bird Count results for our park:
8 ring-billed gull Larus delawarensis
2 American herring gull Larus smithsonianus
4 wood stork Mycteria americana
3 anhinga Anhinga anhinga
1 double-crested cormorant Nannopterum auritum
1500 white ibis Eudocimus albus
35 roseate spoonbill Platalea ajaja
8 yellow-crowned night heron Nyctanassa violacea
2 black-crowned night heron Nycticorax nycticorax
507 little blue heron Egretta caerulea
145 tricolored heron Egretta tricolor
565 snowy egret Egretta thula
2 western cattle egret Ardea ibis
23 great egret Ardea alba
24 brown pelican Pelecanus occidentalis
1 osprey Pandion haliaetus
1 American crow Corvus brachyrhynchos
1 common grackle Quiscalus quiscula
2 yellow-rumped warbler Setophaga coronata
1 northern cardinal Cardinalis cardinalis
A big thank you to St. Johns Regional Audubon for all you do for the birds!