The Counted Bird: The Christmas Bird Count and This County's West Edge

National Audubon's census, the South Bend circle (INSB), and a rookery negative

Lead: The Christmas Bird Count is the institution that turned the county's birds from Chapman's prose into a time series. Frank M. Chapman — no relation to the county history's publisher — proposed the count in 1900 as a census instead of the Christmas “side hunt,” and National Audubon still runs it: one 24-hour day between December 14 and January 5, inside a fixed 15-mile-diameter circle, compiled and submitted to Audubon's database. The South Bend count, code INSB, is this county's circle of record, long compiled in the published compiler lists by Victor Riemenschneider and run in recent seasons through the South Bend–Elkhart Audubon Society.

Its geography matters to this section, and it is printed carefully: reporting on the current count describes the South Bend circle's 7.5-mile radius as extending from downtown South Bend west to Lydick, south just north of Lakeville, east to a bit of Osceola and north into Niles Township. That western reach takes in the county's Lydick ground — the bog and lake country immediately east of Olive Township — but the circle does not cover New Carlisle, Spicer Lake or Bendix Woods, which lie beyond its west edge. The township's counted-bird coverage therefore comes from the circle's rim, not its heart, and from the eBird hotspot record at the preserves themselves (see the closing article); no separate New Carlisle or Olive Township count circle exists in Audubon's published Indiana summaries reached. What the South Bend circle has produced, at published strength, is a working rarity record: a Ross's × Snow Goose hybrid that was a state CBC first in the 119th count, 91 Wild Turkeys in the same season, a Swainson's Thrush that was the state's tenth CBC record in the 120th, a White-winged Crossbill — the state's first in seven years — the same season, and in the 122nd count both a Tennessee Warbler that was a CBC first for Indiana and the state's second-ever Nashville Warbler, 47 years after the first, alongside the state's highest Brown Creeper tallies' company (South Bend, 21).

The rookery negative, printed where it applies: searches run for this row — heron rookery / heronry with St. Joseph County, Olive Township, New Carlisle, Spicer Lake and the Kankakee headwaters, across the county parks, DNR and birding-trail records reached — returned no heron rookery on this ground. Great Blue Heron is recorded at Spicer Lake as a visiting and foraging bird (eBird hotspot list) and Chapman lists the great blue heron among the county's visiting waders in 1880; a breeding colony — a rookery — is a different claim, and no source reached makes it for this township. Finding: no heron rookery on this ground in the record, as of November 2026.

Sources:

1. National Audubon Society, Christmas Bird Count — program history (Frank Chapman, 1900), 15-mile circles, Dec. 14–Jan. 5 window; CBC compiler lists (112th count) — INSB South Bend, Victor Riemenschneider.
2. National Audubon, Indiana CBC season summaries — 119th count (Ross's × Snow Goose hybrid, state first; South Bend turkeys 91), 120th (Swainson's Thrush, tenth state record; White-winged Crossbill, first in seven years), 122nd (Tennessee Warbler, state CBC first; Nashville Warbler, state second; Brown Creeper 21).
3. Joe Dits, South Bend Christmas Bird Count preview (Substack, Dec. 2025 season) — circle's 7.5-mile radius from downtown South Bend reaching Lydick; compiler contact via South Bend–Elkhart Audubon.
4. eBird hotspot, Spicer Lake Nature Preserve — Great Blue Heron recorded; Chapman (1880), waders list.