As the season spins us closer to the holidays, we find ourselves creating lists and checking off items once they’re done. Purchase such-and-such (preferably locally made) gifts for our loved ones (check). Finalize who’s coming to the holiday dinner (check) and what we’ll have on the menu (check). Count birds for this year’s Christmas Bird Count (check).
Gardiner Waterfront Park is a great place to look for birds during the CBC when the water’s open like it was this year. (Photo by Allison Wells)
That last one on the list always seems to sneak up on us, and sometimes we wonder if we’re too busy to participate. But to us, that just makes participating in one of country’s great celebrations of birds that much more important.
From December 14 through January 5, tens of thousands of people (more than 80,000 last year) participate in the thousands of National Audubon Society’s official Christmas Bird Counts that take place across the U.S., Canada, Latin America, and the Caribbean.
Here in Maine, there are 36 CBCs taking place this year that are scheduled sometime in the three-week period. At least a third of them took place on the first weekend of the count period, including the Augusta Christmas Bird Count CBC, which includes Gardiner, our designated count area.
Northern Cardinals were in abundance during this year’s Augusta area Christmas Bird Count. (Photo by Jayne Winters)
You may recall that Saturday (December 14) was a gorgeous blue-sky day—cold, but with clear sidewalks and roads. And lots of open water. Every one of the 10 miles walked was walked in gratitude for the time outside watching trees and the sky and bird feeders and the Kennebec River. Every bird seen or heard was a gift. Conversations engaged with people curious about what strange (or not so strange) birds might be about? Welcomed.
During this year’s area count, Northern Cardinals and Tufted Titmice seemed to be everywhere, while Black-capped Chickadees were not as numerous as expected (in our area, at least). There were a few Carolina Wrens but not a single Red-bellied Woodpecker to be found. A flock of about 75 American Robins was a nice surprise; they descended from the sky into our neighborhood in the early afternoon, bringing with them memories of warmer, greener months yet plenty of cheer nonetheless.
It’s true that anyone can walk out and count birds any day of the year and send in those counts to eBird. But there are several things that make the Christmas Bird Count different and special. First is the fact that the CBC is a hundred-year-old tradition that started as a protest movement against indiscriminate hunts to see who could kill the most birds. Hard to believe anyone could ever find pleasure in that! Second is that the counts follow a careful protocol wherein teams tally all birds identified on the same day within their section of a 15-mile-diameter circle. Third is that the results of the decades of standard CBC counts are an important tool for learning about and monitoring the health of bird populations.
Black-capped Chickadee numbers, on the other hand, were down. (Photo by David Small)
But what we think makes the Christmas Bird Count tradition so important and so special is that it is a communal undertaking of tens of thousands of people who share a common interest in birds and nature. At the individual CBC level, every participant on the count knows that there are teams of others counting birds at the same time somewhere within 15 miles at any time. There’s definitely comradery in that. During Saturday’s count for the Augusta CBC, there were hundreds of people doing the same on CBCs from Caribou to Portland. Across the U.S., Canada, Latin America, and the Caribbean, there were tens of thousands more people doing the same. What a feeling!
We couldn’t help but reminisce about our first Christmas Bird Counts when we were teens. Both of us were fortunate to have teachers and mentors who encouraged our interest in birds. They gave us what felt like a great honor to be invited to participate in this exciting event called the Christmas Bird Count. It really did feel special to be part of something enormous like the CBC, to be looking for, listening for, and counting as many birds as possible and contributing our data to something bigger. Some CBCs have a wonderful tradition (more so pre-COVID) of participants coming together at the end of the day for a pot-luck party in which everyone reports their results and shares stories of good birds and adventures. Now some do the same via Zoom. Others may share the results via email or phone.
Eventually all of the numbers are rolled up into a final tally and submitted to the National Audubon Society Christmas Bird Count database where they become both a dataset for study and a history and point-of-pride for all who took part.
Would you like to be part of this grand tradition? You still can as there are more CBCs yet to take place. Find out more at www.audubon.org/community-science/christmas-bird-count/join-christmas-bird-count and here: maineaudubon.org/birding/christmas-bird-count.
—Jeff and Allison Wells
Banner photo: Northern Cardinal by Terry Sprague
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