10 ILLINOIS AUDUBON BULLETIN 
responsible for finding the highest number of individuals (including 
ties) for one or more species; TABLE 4 shows the 22 counties 
reporting the high totals for four or more species, and, for proper 
perspective, the counties have been recorded in descending order 
according to the ratio of number of high counts divided by the 
number of parties per county. Such ratios would also be interesting 
for comparing total species reported per party per county (number of 
species/party effort); however, there is no realistic way of doing this. 
TABLE 5 
TWENTY MOST COMMON SPECIES 
1976 1975 1974 
Common Grackle 43865 40576 59264 
Redwinged Blackbird 43121 42313 47843 
European Starling 29825 23310 22886 
House Sparrow 27943 24749 33013 
American Robin 15967 12393 13878 
Lesser Golden Plover 7465 8643 6517 
Mourning Dove 7452 6007 6191 
American Goldfinch 6726 5073 5444 
Blue Jay 6368 7847 7189 
Eastern Meadowlark 5675 5404 6673 
Barn Swallow 5630 3722 3194 
Brown-headed Cowbird 5490 3879 4655 
Northern Cardinal 5362 5162 5806 
Tree Swallow 5334 * * 
White-throated Sparrow 5234, * * 
Rock Dove 4880 5506 4706 
Chimey Swift 4383 4412 2959 
Red-headed Woodpecker 4368 4020 4564 
American Crow 4184 3649 4146 
Song Sparrow 4071 3305 3528) 
*Not in top 20 these years. 
The Common Grackle was once again the most numerous bird 
reported — it achieved this distinction four of these first five years; 
this does not, however, mean it is necessarily the most common 
species in Illinois. The grackle and the next four most common (or 
most conspicuous) species have always been the top five species, 
numerically speaking: Redwinged Blackbird, European Starling, 
House Sparrow and American Robin. This is the first time that the 
Tree Swallow made the top 29 list and only the second time for the 
White-throated Sparrow. Our state bird dropped to thirteenth place 
this year compared with tenth place last year. There was a great 
increase in Kuropean Starlings compared to past counts and this is 
the greatest number of American Robins, Mourning Doves and 
American Goldfinches ever reported. You will note the increases and 
decreases in the other top 20 species, compared to past years, in 
TABLE 5. 
