Christmas Bird Counts

In the 1800s tradition was that the day after Christmas the men in the family went a-hunting to see how successful they could be. By the end of the century an awareness of the slaughter led Dr. Frank M. Chapman and the National Audubon Society to start the Christmas Bird Counts where the competition was as furious as with the hunters but the object was to “count coup”, that is, to see as many birds as possible in one day and let them live to fly away. Shortly guidelines were designed so that all teams were playing by the same rules. The count was for a 24 hour period, midnight to midnight and the area to be covered was within a circle with a 15 mile diameter. The count is now sponsored by both National Audubon Society and the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service. Each count has a compiler that organizes his team of volunteers to get the most coverage, and therefore, the most accurate count of wintering birds in the area. Competition between counts is fun and friendly with the warmer states, CA, TX, & FL vying with one and another for top honors. Sometimes the Alaska count receives accolades for the tenacity and determination of the birders when they spend all day in sub-zero weather for a couple of Ravens! The data are published in Audubon Field Notes (formerly American Birds) with the numbers and names of the birds and birders along with the modes of transportation which is exhaustive. In the unending quest to find every possible bird the means used have included snowshoes and sleigh, horseback and canoe, marsh buggy and helicopter and even an electric golf cart! In the ninety-sixth Christmas Bird Count conducted in December 1995-January 1996, there were 45,329 field observers and 7220 feeder watchers who tallied 58,287,941 individual birds on 1665 counts. The 58 million birds was far down because the tremendous roost of blackbirds, cowbirds, grackles, and starlings (sometimes nearly 100 million) happened to be outside all of the count circles. Inyo County has three Christmas Counts: Death Valley and Lone Pine (Mike Prather, compiler) and Bishop (Earl Gann, compiler). [ Need the dates, Larry] Make this year the first of your annual winter outing events and call the compilers to offer your services. They, and the wintering birds of Inyo County, could use your help.