Num-bird

An uphill battle for Bellingham bird population after decline.

Northern Pintails fly across the water in Semiahmoo Bay. Taken Feb. 2025.

Story and Photos by Natalie Taylor

March 20, 2025

Birders observe a Red Breasted Merganser killed by a seal to better understand how to identify the species. Taken October 2024.

December 16, 2024. James Duemmel submits his yearly email to the Bellingham birdwatching email list.

“Below are the results of the Bellingham Christmas Bird Count for December 1973, fifty years ago,” he writes. 

The count in question sends out confusion and shock amongst the responders. Species like Western Grebes, Thayer’s Gull, Marbled Murrelets, and Snowy Owls - a range of species across many genera - were orders of magnitude higher than modern Christmas Bird Count (CBC) records. Other species like the now prolific Canada Goose and invasive Anna’s Hummingbird numbered less than 10.

Duemmel is an 89-year-old former mathematics professor at Western Washington University. He’s also a birder and has been since he was a child who participated in the Boy Scouts. 

Duemmel represents the “old guard” of the birding community. Classic birders like Duemmel are the people who have stuck around in one area long enough to see the changes over decades. 

“Most people don't give a damn. I think they should,” Duemmel said. 

In 1967, Duemmel and Terry Wahl co-founded the Bellingham chapter of the CBC. The bird count is the longest-running community science bird project in the US and has been ongoing for over 100 years across the country. Universities, the American Bird Conservancy and the National Audubon use this long-term data, according to Alex Jeffers, a North Cascades Audubon board member.

Duemmel continues to go on the CBC and has been sending emails with older data since 2018, 50 years after the first Bellingham CBC. 

“Part of the idea of a Christmas Bird Count is to find out what is happening to the bird populations. And to do that, you ought to be looking at what happened before, not just today,” Duemmel said.

John Bower has been taking these words to heart since he moved to Bellingham in 1998. Even as a newcomer, Bower realized how special the birding scene in Bellingham was. 

“Bellingham has a rich history of talented and dedicated bird watchers,” Bower said. 

The 65-year-old Bower is a scientist and current professor at Western. He also started the email list that connects local Bellingham birders, which Duemmel used to share past CBC reports. 

A dead Red Breasted Merganser is observed to view her ridged beak which is adapted to eat fish. Taken Oct. 2024.

Bower was first contacted in the early 2000s by Wahl who had analyzed CBC data and found significant population declines. 

Bower and a group of Western students set out to replicate the last wintering seabird census done by the Environmental Protection Agency to see how populations had changed in the 30 years since. What they found was horrifying. 

The study found substantial decreases in 14 of the 37 species analyzed between 1975 and 2007. 

“When you have species that are declining by 80 or 90 percent over a 30 year period, that's pretty alarming,” Bower said.

Species like the Marbled Murrelet and Western Grebe were particularly concerning. 

“It was not unusual to see many thousands of Western Grebes in Bellingham Bay in the 1970s,” Bower said. “Nowadays, in the winter, if you go out, you're lucky if you see any at all.” 

This is not a problem unique to Bellingham. Using CBC data, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology found that nearly three billion birds across North America have disappeared since 1970. 

With extraordinary population losses in every biome, that’s more than one in four birds.

For young birders, entering a world that has already seen so much change and a community that tells tales of it can be daunting. Rachel Rothberg is part of a new generation of birders that has to grapple with the knowledge that the world of birds has fundamentally changed from the experiences of older birders. The 26-year-old tattoo artist has been fascinated by birds since they were a child.

To Rothberg, birding is more than a science or a hobby, it’s a way to see the world. From their tattoos to their paintings, their work focuses on bringing people face-to-face with birds. 

“It feels so terrifying to think about the huge scale of loss that's going on,” Rothberg said. “The only thing that I know how to do is to return to the birds as individuals, and that's where the empathy and care comes.” 

As a Western student, they co-founded the WWU Birdwatching Club and worked with Professor John Bower to create a project called “Painting Ecological Change in Pacific Northwest Bird Populations” that involved painting bird species that had undergone population changes in the Pacific Northwest, including Western Grebes.

Rachel Rothberg stands in Heritage Park, binoculars in hand. Taken Jan. 2025

To Rothberg, the birding community exploded with a new generation during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, when people were forced to look at the world in a new way.

Rothberg explained that people have always been interested in birds, but it hasn’t always been accessible. With the sudden influx of numbers the birding community is gaining, support for birds is getting a second wind. Rothberg now participates in the CBC, leading their first group this past December. 

“I'm heartened to see so many people of all ages and all backgrounds getting into birding, and it feels critical at this time,” Rothberg said.

The birding community isn’t alone in wanting to protect bird species. Bellingham has passed several regulations that deal with wildlife habitats such as the Critical Areas Ordinance, according to Annaliese Burns, the Habitat and Restoration Manager in the Public Works Department. The Public Works Department manages the Post Point Great Blue Heron Colony, the only known heron nesting site in Bellingham. 

While it may be an uphill battle, the birding community is far from giving up. 

“Whatcom County really has a wealth of people that are dedicated to protecting habitat,” Jeffers said.

The world is changing, and birds are in trouble. 

“There's just many things, and different individuals can do different things,” Bower said.

A Common Loon floats on the water in Whatcom County. Taken Oct. 2024

A Harlequin Duck, a species whose population has remained stable, rests on a rock. Taken March 2024