The terrifying crowds of Black Friday signify more than just the undignified end to Thanksgiving and the start of the Christmas season. For birders, they also signify the official end of fall migration and the beginning of winter birding. Winter can be a difficult time for new birders, especially if you haven鈥檛 yet discovered the pleasures of sorting through a flock of in a parking lot. It鈥檚 cold. It gets dark early. There are just fewer birds around to look at.
But what are we going to do, stop birding? No way. Winter is the time for birders to double-down, come together, and bird the heck out of their area. Winter is the time for Christmas Bird Counts.
Let me make this clear right now: I HIGHLY recommend that all birders鈥攂ut especially new birders鈥攋oin their local Christmas Bird Count. For expert birders it鈥檚 just a great day of birding, but for new birders, Christmas Bird Counts (aka 鈥楥BCs鈥) are the ideal way to meet local birders, learn a lot about birding sites in the area, and see loads of birds. If I鈥檝e sold you already, . If you don鈥檛 know what the heck I鈥檓 talking about, keep reading. Actually, please keep reading anyway.
Christmas Bird Counts are bird-counting events, created and organized by this here 探花精选, taking place within a specific area on a specific day between mid-December and early January. Count leaders send out groups of birders to work segments within a 15-mile-diameter circle. The groups then scour their sectors, checking each stand of trees, backyard feeder, and little pond that time allows while counting each and every individual bird they see. Depending on the area you鈥檙e covering and how many birders there are, some counts have you bird all day and others just a few hours. Either way, at the end of the day, the birders come back together, usually returning to coffee and food, so that everyone can tally up the results. When all is said and done, you鈥檝e compiled a representative list of local bird species and population numbers, which can be compared against previous years.
And compared they are. Christmas Bird Counts have been going on since 1900, when ornithologist and early 探花精选 friend Frank Chapman helped organize a non-lethal counterpart to popular brutal 鈥渟ide hunt鈥 competitions of the day. What started with 25 count circles across the country has expanded into thousands of birders participating in hundreds of counts in the U.S. and across the globe. Although the censuses aren鈥檛 perfectly precise, they contribute to a body of knowledge that has helped us track bird species and population movements for more than a century.
Plus, they're just fun. I鈥檝e participated in CBCs all across the country. My first was in Aspen, Colorado, where I met Al Levantin, an incredible birder and one of the subjects of Mark Obmascik鈥檚 classic The Big Year. Thankfully I wasn鈥檛 assigned to bird with him (I was a terrible birder back then and would have been mortified about trying to make IDs with such a legend). Instead, I went out with some other guy who was even worse than I was and who angrily insisted that all the crows we were seeing were ravens (they were crows). The same guy also thought we found a rare group of swans until I gently pointed out that they were gulls. Still, I had a wonderful time.
My next few CBCs were around Portland, Maine, which included years that were unseasonably warm鈥攇ood for lingering migrants鈥攁nd years that were frigidly cold鈥攇ood for northern irruptives and drinking a lot of coffee. I think my favorite memory from those CBCs was the time my birding pal Doug and I stumbled on a pond in a housing development that happened to be the only ice-free water for miles. Consequently, it was chock-full of waterfowl, including a whole bunch of species that none of the other birders in the CBC found. I鈥檒l never forget the group鈥檚 growing amazement at the end-of-day tally as Doug and I kept raising our hands for species that no one else called out.
It was colder than I expected for the CBC I joined when I lived in north Mississippi. We stomped all through the tall grass of Sardis Wildlife Refuge, turning up Le Conte鈥檚 Sparrows, a Sedge Wren, and a rare Rough-legged Hawk. We had 71 species in total, my highest ever for a single CBC.
For the past few years I鈥檝e helped D.C. 探花精选 lead a group of a dozen or so birders through Battery Kemble Park in Northwest D.C. The birds aren鈥檛 quite as exotic鈥攊t鈥檚 a great count if you love Northern Cardinals and White-throated Sparrows鈥攂ut we have run into the South Korean Ambassador. We're also pretty sure we saw Peter Jennings walking his dog one time. In the D.C. area on December 17th this year?
In addition to a great single day of birding, participating in a CBC means you鈥檙e part of an international movement. Ever year 探花精选 tallies up information about Count Circles, participants, and, of course, the species counted. The set a new record with, and I hope you鈥檙e sitting down for this, 76,669 birders working 2,505 Count Circles. Keep sitting down, because more huge numbers are coming. Birders counted 58,878,071 individual birds, 54,531,408 of those in the United States alone. The Count Circle for Matagorda County-Mad Island Marsh, Texas, identified the most species of any U.S. count at 239, which itself was blown away by the 509 species counted during the count in Yanayacu, Ecuador. Phew!
So, if you want to be part of all this鈥攁nd you should!鈥攇o to the to find the Count Circle near you and sign up. You鈥檒l get an email back from the organizer of your local count telling you the wheres and the whens, and letting you know which section of the Count Circle you鈥檒l be birding and with whom.
Christmas Bird Counts are as sacred a tradition as there is in birding. Many of us don鈥檛 need an excuse to get out birding鈥攅ven in the depths of winter鈥攂ut the fact that we鈥檙e with friends and connecting to a century鈥檚 worth of effort and information makes it all the more meaningful. For new birders, the opportunity to meet some other area birders and learn more about birds and nearby locations should not be missed. Merry Christmas Bird Count!