This American Cardinal was one bird sought during the Jan. 6 bird count in Butler County. Frigid temperatures were blamed for keeping both bird counters and birds scarce.

Extremely low temperatures and dangerous wind chill conditions kept the numbers of both bird sightings and observers low during the Jan. 6 bird count in Butler County.

Chris Kubiak, the development associate for the Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania, said the annual bird census, which started at midnight and ran until 11:59 p.m., was affected by morning temperatures of minus 8 and wind chill factors reaching 25 below zero.

“It was brutally cold,” said Kubiak who got to experience the temperature firsthand when he went out at 6 a.m. to look for owls.

“We had 25 observers (in 2017 there were 67) which was down purely because of the weather,” said Kubiak.

“It was a dedicated crew that was coming out and I appreciate it. It was dangerously cold,” he added.

He said the observers were divided into 13 field parties that went out to spot and record birds in a circular area centered around Mars and running west to Zelienople, south to Cranberry Township, east to the Route 228 corridor and north to Penn and Connoquenessing townships.

“The bird count was absolutely affected by the weather,” he said. “Some of the species were hunkered down and some of them actually moved out of the area.”

Still, the observers managed to spot 51 bird species which, he said, “is not bad all things considered.”

Several feathered newcomers to the county were reported, including the Eastern towhee and the swamp sparrow which was spotted at Glade Run Lake.

Kubiak said, “The Eastern towhee normally migrates out of here. It eats seeds and insects and is found scraping at the forest floor.”

He also noted 36 ring-billed sea gulls and one herring gull were spotted.

“Some are resident around Moraine and some are coming down from Canada,” he said.