Locals build on long tradition and connect to birds by participating in annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count — as bird populations change dramatically
Just after 9 a.m. on the last Saturday of the year, three birders walked to Sunset Beach in Anacortes’ Washington Park, looked through binoculars and a spotting scope, scanned Rosario Strait and began counting the birds they saw.
“Two marbled murrelets out there. That’s nice,” said Neil O’Hara, who was leading the group.
Besides the murrelets, which are threatened under the Endangered Species Act, the group tallied scoters, red-breasted mergansers, buffleheads and more before they moved on, while a bald eagle circled in the overcast sky.
Their activity that morning connected to a tradition that stretches back 125 years: the Audubon Society’s annual Christmas Bird Count (CBC), which started with just a handful of birders.
The CBC has developed into a significant citizen science project that not only provides abundant data about birds across the western hemisphere but also engages people in the outdoors.
Northwest Washington birders celebrate all this tradition brings year after year.
Gathering data
Local chapters such as Skagit Audubon Society and North Cascades Audubon organize the annual event in their regions.
Each area is divided up into zones where teams follow strict protocols so that year-to-year data stays consistent. Weather may vary wildly from one year to the next and change what birds are observed, but volunteers will count from the same places following the same procedures.
It takes effort.
This year’s data is still being processed, but in 2023, North Cascades chapter volunteers put in 191 hours and covered 682 miles.
This year for the Padilla Bay CBC, which Skagit Audubon Society organizes, 65 volunteers put in roughly 423 hours. They counted 107,560 birds across 122 species.
Over time and across many communities, this data accumulates. Annual summaries are available online going back to the beginning of the last century.
According to the Audubon Society, more than 300 peer-reviewed articles have used CBC data.
This dataset was one of those used in a major study published five years ago that estimated bird loss in North America at 3 billion birds — 29% — since 1970.
To ensure the data is usable, observers must be confident in what birds they hear or see to count them, so the CBC is not an activity for a beginning birder. In spite of that confidence, “there’s probably a certain amount of systematic error” in the count, said O’Hara. “But the fact that the data isn’t perfect doesn’t mean it’s not useful, because you have it over multiple years.”
The flaws, said O’Hara, will be similar everywhere. Trends emerge clearly.
The North Cascades chapter has been doing the CBC for more than 50 years. Alex Jeffers, who has coordinated the North Cascades chapter CBC the last three years, recently saw the early counts in Whatcom County. Jeffers was stunned to see how many western meadowlarks appeared in those tallies, because grassland birds like that have been in steep decline.
Bird populations are changing dramatically. Climate change and habitat destruction explain much of decline, but some new species are expanding their range and backyard feeders make a difference, too.
Every year, count teams locate rare or unexpected birds and sometimes miss formerly common birds. Jeffers said one in the group identified a western wood peewee, which he believes is a first for the Bellingham CBC. The Padilla Bay CBC located several notable species, including black phoebes, ancient murrelets and orange-crowned warblers. The team counting in Samish Flats did not see any peregrine falcons, where they used to be a regular sight.
One of Jeffers’ mentors taught him a saying: “Birds have wings; they end up in weird places.” So Jeffers is not quick to conclude that birds in unexpected places are necessarily portents of catastrophe.
Still, from its inception, the CBC has been concerned with the vitality of bird populations.
Concern, admiration for birds
Participating in the CBC is “just one of those things that birders do,” said Atul Tandon, who normally counts in Seattle but was traveling this year when the local chapter conducted its count, so he joined the Anacortes group this year. “It’s really the citizen science effort to get together and understand what’s happening to birds and, through looking at birds, to understand what’s happening to nature around us.”
Barry Antler, who rounded out the Anacortes team, has been birding since the 1970s and has joined the CBC because of his “concerns about the welfare of the birds.” In addition, the aesthetics matter. “I just really appreciate the beauty and behavior” of birds, said Antler.
A few minutes later, to emphasize the point, Antler pointed out a harlequin duck. “That’s a beautiful bird,” he said, standing at Washington Park’s Green Point as the skies cleared up.
The group retraced their steps, thankful for warmer and drier weather than some years. After two hours, they had seen 208 birds representing 24 species, which O’Hara judged as “reasonably normal.” They had more places to check.
Developing connections
Although creating a bird census is the primary purpose of the CBC, an important byproduct is the connection it creates between participants and conservation.
Jeffers thinks the CBC helps people “take ownership of conservation issues” and gets them engaged more deeply to see how the local landscape and birds fit into the larger picture and context.”
This is becoming easier.
Birding has become more popular with better tools, including popular apps like Merlin Bird ID, from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, that helps identify birds by sound and image.
For a time, Tayler Brooks worked on Merlin. As dusk was falling on Skagit’s CBC, though, she stood at the Samish River Unit of Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Skagit Wildlife Area, better known as the East 90, counting birds, including a raven and bald eagle lazily battling in the sky.
A birder since age 11, Brooks remembers participating in the CBC as a kid and it being the first time she felt part of something that could “be used for the greater good.”
That has continued, and she thinks the CBC is a good way to increase awareness and investment in the natural world around us. This can lead into several directions from science to art to writing.
“It’s a really great way to spark connection between people around the natural world,” said Brooks.
Brooks’ partner for the CBC was Joel Brady-Power, who got interested in birding when an acquaintance pointed out that, “birds hang out in really cool places.” Brady-Power has been following them ever since.
Brady-Power called birding a “walking meditation.” While “looking for these birds,” he said, “you end up noticing other things.”
This was Brady-Power’s third CBC as leader of this area. The CBC helps him and others develop a rewarding and “deeper connection to where you are and where you live,” he said. “The longer that you do it, the more you feel that connection, the more you notice things and the ways things change.”
Long-lasting community
All that noticing adds up.
Participating in the annual CBC “feels like you’re making some contribution in some small way, I suppose, to a worthwhile tradition,” said O’Hara.
It builds not only datasets but also community, including across generations.
When he saw the old data, Jeffers felt a “connection with the folks that had been doing this for so long,” which was a fun feeling.
Such traditions and cooperation can feel rare.
“It’s just kind of amazing, you know, to get people all across the country to do anything together,” said Brady-Power. “It’s an incredible collaboration.”
— By Adam M. Sowards
Also read in Salish Current:
“Skagit’s white birds of winter are ambassadors among land use, values conflicts,” Nov. 22, 2023