Birders flock to annual Audubon count

Chuck Whitney of Ellsworth came back from leading an Audubon tour in the South, just in time to count birds for the Orono-Old Town Christmas Bird Count. A loyal counter, he has participated in this count every year for more than 25 years. Beating the bushes for birds in the wilds of Eddington, he heard a familiar voice from the South-A Carolina wren, the state bird of South Carolina and far north of its usual home.

Christmas Count birders love finding rare birds and are loyal to their bird counts. Veteran counters Vance and Evelyn Dearborn of Orono have participated in the Orono count for 34 years and enjoyed welcoming the newest birder in the group, 3-month-old Andy Marston who went on his first Christmas Count with his mother.

Birders vary in their birding skills. Experts are good at finding and identifying rarities, but neophytes can be good at spotting birds, which experts in their group then can identify. Birders vary in their level of birding skills, and in abilities and preferences. When one group stopped, three birders elected to climb over a railing, then scramble up and down two steep banks to get a look at unusual and beautiful ducks near the Penjajawoc Stream: Barrow’s goldeneyes. The fourth elected to stay near the car; you can see lots of birds from the car, too.

Some prefer birding in a group; others prefer to search on their own. One birder routinely hikes 15 miles the day of this count; most prefer to stay near their cars. Some birders use their ears as much as, or more than, their eyes. Birds do not usually sing in winter, they just give call notes. A song is long and structured; a call note is often just one quick note, much harder to identify.

Steve Coleman of Bangor does all his Christmas bird counting by ear. He is an expert on bird songs and call notes. Steve teaches at Bangor’s Fairmount School through the University of Maine’s National Center for Student Aspirations. He sometimes shares his interest in birds with fourth- and fifth-graders. Steve also leads Audubon birding-by-ear walks. He says he loves sharing his love of nature and birds with others, and he also loves contributing to databases used by scientists, as is the Christmas Bird Count. Steve is blind and learned bird songs as well as karate from his mentor

Bruce Barker is renowned for his birding skills as well as his karate abilities and teaching. A veteran Christmas bird counter, he had to work the day of the count, but in a brief early morning foray, he managed to find a rare bird, a shrike. Nobody else saw one on this count. Veteran birder Warren Nestler participated in many Christmas Bird Counts; then he had a stroke. He continues to watch birds at his feeder, from his wheelchair. And, despite communication challenges, he communicated his list of observed birds just fine. Birders are irrepressible and cannot be stopped. Christmas Count participants can participate at any skill and ability level.

Birders are assigned a territory; their assignment is to scour their area for birds that are less common or harder to find and don’t come to feeders: eagles, grouse, owls, pileated woodpeckers, ducks on the Penobscot River.

Feeder-watchers watch their feeders carefully on Christmas Count day and come up with a careful estimate of how many chickadees and other birds they have in their yard, which is not easy. Chickadees especially are always on the move.

Birds found on the recent Orono-Old Town Christmas Bird Count include these 51 species: black duck, mallard, common goldeneye, Barrow’s goldeneye, hooded merganser, common merganser, osprey, bald eagle, sharp-shinned hawk, goshawk, rough-legged hawk, red-tailed hawk, ruffed grouse, turkey, pheasant, herring gull, great black-backed gull, ring-billed gull, rock dove, mourning dove, barred owl, downy woodpecker, hairy woodpecker, Carolina wren, winter wren, blue jay, crow, raven, chickadee, tufted titmouse, red-breasted nuthatch, white-breasted nuthatch, brown creeper, golden-crowned kinglet, robin, mockingbird, shrike, starling, cardinal, pine warbler, tree sparrow, song sparrow, white-throated sparrow, junco, purple finch, house finch, white-winged crossbill, goldfinch, pine siskin, house sparrow.

Christmas Bird Counts are run by the Audubon Society and are used by ornithologists to monitor winter bird populations. All counting must be on the day designated by its compiler (not Christmas itself, but typically some weekend between Dec. 14 and Jan. 4) and within a 15-mile diameter circle registered with the Audubon Society.

The next Christmas count in our area is the Bangor-Bucksport one, on Dec. 28. Those who want to participate can call the Fields Pond Audubon Center at 989-2591.

Judy Kellogg Markowsky is the director of Fields Pond Audubon Center in Holden.