Winter chickadees and nuthatches on the Upper Swan Valley Christmas Bird Count

Western Montana's Swan Valley is wild and forested. It's also the location of one of over 2600 Christmas Bird Counts that take place across Canada, the United States, and Latin America each winter. This is the story of this wintry, forested Christmas Bird Count. It's a story of chickadees, golden-crowned kinglets, and red-breasted nuthatches: common winter birds in the conifer forest. But it's also a story of the birds we didn't see: the forest finches that were conspicuously missing on this day. Where are they this winter? And how can Christmas Bird Counts help us understand patterns like this over time?  Listen to find out.