Take part in the 103rd annual Christmas Bird Count
This year, set the baking and wrapping aside long enough to start a new holiday tradition.
Whether the recent sighting of a spotted towhee is a highlight of your year, or you don't know a towhee from a tattler, you're invited to join birders across the Western Hemisphere in a century-old winter tradition, the annual Christmas Bird Count.
Juneau Audubon Society is sponsoring the count in Juneau on Saturday, Dec. 14. Volunteer birders of all skill levels are welcome.
Meet at either of the two McDonald's restaurants no later than 8 a.m. on count day. If you're interested in counting in the downtown, Douglas, and North Douglas Island areas, meet at the downtown restaurant. To work the Lemon Creek, airport, Mendenhall Valley and Auke Bay areas, meet at the Valley restaurant.
Birders will divide into teams and survey a defined area. Dress for the weather; bring binoculars and bird guide if you have them.
This is an excellent time to improve your birding skills by working with more experienced team leaders. Even if you are unable to commit the entire day to the count, you are encouraged to turn out for a few hours. Who knows, you might just see something no one else has noticed! And if you have a feeder at home, you can keep count there and turn in your numbers at the end of the day.
There will be a potluck in the evening to share in the events of the day and to conduct the tally of birds and species seen. Details will be given at the 8 a.m. briefing before the count begins.
Audubon's wintertime tradition, the Christmas Bird Count, began over a century ago when 27 conservationists in 25 localities, led by ornithologist Frank Chapman, changed the course of ornithological history.
On Christmas Day 1900, the small group of conservationists initiated an alternative activity to the "side hunt," a holiday practice typical of their time. In this side hunt, teams competed to see who could shoot the most birds and small mammals. Instead of the hunt, Chapman proposed to identify, count, and record the birds seen, thus founding one of the most significant citizen-based conservation efforts and that has now become a century-old institution.
Apart from its attraction as a social, sporting, and competitive event, the Christmas Bird Count reveals scientific information about the winter distributions of various bird species. It is important in monitoring the status of resident and migratory birds across the Western Hemisphere. The data, generated entirely by volunteers, has become a crucial part of the U. S. government's natural history monitoring database. Count results from 1900 to the present are available through Audubon's Web site, http://www.audubon.org/bird/cbc.
Now in its 103rd year, the Christmas Bird Count is larger than ever, expanding its geographical range and accumulating valuable scientific data.
Backed with over a century of participation and collected data, the Christmas Bird Count is the longest-running volunteer-based bird census, spanning three human generations.
It has evolved into a powerful and important tool, one probably inconceivable to any of the 27 participants on the first count.
Accumulating data from the count has become increasingly important by providing raw material for studies monitoring the status of early winter bird populations as well as the overall health of the environment. With continually growing environmental pressures, it's likely that today's participants cannot fathom the value of their efforts in the next century.
More than 55,000 volunteers from all 50 states, every Canadian province, parts of Central and South America, Bermuda, the West Indies, and Pacific islands count and record every individual bird and bird species seen in a specified area. During last year's count, about 52 million individual birds were counted.
Thanks in part to Bird Studies Canada, a leading not-for-profit conservation organization, which is the Canadian partner for the Christmas Bird Count, last year saw a new record high of 1,936 individual counts. Each individual count group completes a census of the birds found during one 24-hour period between Dec. 14 and Jan. 5 in a designated circle 15 miles in diameter - about 177 square miles. The 103rd count results will be viewable in near real-time at the Audubon Web site.
For more information on this year's Christmas Bird Count, contact Deanna MacPhail at 789-0651.
Richard Carstensen will present a program on using aerial photos to detect change on the largest trees in the Tongass and on the Mendenhall wetlands salt marsh when Juneau Audubon Society meets 7:30 p.m. Dec. 12 at Dzantik'i Heeni Middle School.