Environment : Notes about your surroundings.

Count Results--Last Sunday’s coastal bird count tallied 195 species unofficially (a few reports still need to be confirmed). That falls short of last year’s count of 201 and well behind the record-setting count of two years ago, which enumerated 214 species.

Still, it’s not bad, according to Doug Willick of the Sea & Sage chapter of the National Audubon Society, especially considering counts were generally in the 170s just a few years ago. “We have done better, but it’s still pretty high,” Willick said.

The coastal count for Orange County will still probably rank among the top 10 in the nation. So far, the national winner looks like Freeport, Texas, with a reported 226 species, with Santa Barbara leading the state with 205.

Orange County’s coastal count was lower than in the last two years for sea birds and especially waterfowl. One theory for the decrease in waterfowl, Willick said, is that the mild winter is allowing the birds to winter farther north.

There were plenty of unusual sightings, however. Among the bird species spotted: black and white warbler, American redstart, palm warbler, northern waterthrush, summer tanager, chestnut-colored longspur, orchard oriole, Baltimore oriole, swamp sparrow, clay-colored sparrow, oldsquaw, mountain bluebird, peregrine, merlin, prairie falcon, eastern phoebe, vermilion flycatcher and white pelican.

This year’s inland count tallied a record 166 species on Dec. 17. Among the unusual sightings: Lucy’s warbler, Lapland longspur, Scott’s oriole, sage thrasher (the first county sighting in eight years) and lewis woodpecker.

On Dec. 30, the day before the coastal count, a tree swallow was spotted at Ralph B. Clark Regional Park in Buena Park, the first county sighting on record. The bird was still at the park as recently as Friday.