Christmas Bird Count

Christmas Bird Count

When Peter Schoenberger asks me to join him on his Christmas Bird Count I get that this is a special invitation, perhaps the closest I’ll come to a marriage proposal in this lifetime. I need to be willing to live through the good and bad, the sickness and health of a long day, be up at 3:30 and ready to go at 4:30. When I climb into the car at 4:32, I am aware I am late. But that does not stem my excitement. I am experiencing the thrill of Christmas day when I was a child and woke full of hope. I remind myself that that hope was often deflated late in the morning, as the gifts I wanted were not unwrapped. But, without ruining this narrative I can say that my hopes only soared after unwrapping our first gift of birds.

We arrive at our sector “H” within the Mohonk-Ashokan circle at 5 am. The CBC is conducted by marking off circles fifteen miles in diameter. These circles are then randomly divided into sectors, some larger than others, some more choice than others. Within our circle are the wonderful Mohonk Preserve, and a beautiful section of the Rondout Creek. Peter’s long narrow sector H on the western edge of the circle is one he has covered since 2005 and holds nothing of wonder, in fact was unwanted and uncounted for years. He’s affectionate about the spot because it is his and has been for these five years but otherwise he has no allegiance to this area out route 209 past Stone Ridge in Ulster county, New York. It includes winding, narrow roads that move through farms and at a higher elevation pass through forests of both hardwood and pine trees. Stone houses punctuate the landscape, as well as a few trailers. Most of the houses look shuttered in, dark, and plumes of smoke rise from chimneys. In other words, it is much like many areas of Ulster County. There is nothing special about it, and yet every year, Peter tells me, he finds special birds.

When I first heard about Christmas Bird Count, now its 111th year, I didn’t quite understand what it was all about. Counting birds—how was that possible? And why would you want to count birds in the dead of winter, a time where seeing just a few sparrows, a junco or a cardinal is all you get. Birding is fun in the spring, when the warblers move through the Hudson Valley. But if over 60,000 people in more than 2,000 circles nation-wide devote a day—and have devoted a day since the first CBC in 1900—to counting birds, then there must be something to it. Audubon, who sponsors this event, compiles all of the data, and though in some ways it may seem like rough data, it is still possible to get a good sense of what is happening with bird populations. When I look at the early data from our circle—an area that has been counted for 61 years--I note that they do not have an entry for the bald eagle, a bird that is seen now every year. In the 50s, everyone saw a ruffed grouse, a bird no one sees now. This rise and fall tells us about the health of a specific bird species but also about other environmental issues we should be paying attention to (Audubon has a bibliography of scientific articles that make use of CBC data).  

It is dark out as we stand on Kripplebush road at 5 in the morning. It’s 23 degrees. The stars are magnificent, clear and bright. We both spy a fleeting falling star, and I don’t doubt that we wish for the same thing (if Peter is sentimental enough to wish for anything on a star): to hear a screech owl. Peter calls the bird through his iPod on the car stereo. The sharp, crazy sound of the screech owl emerges from the inside of his warm car. We stand and wait, listening into the quiet. I hear a rooster in the distance and we laugh together when I admit that for a moment I thought it was a special bird. One car passes us in the dark without stopping, and then the next car on that lonely headlight lit road does stop. “We’re looking for birds,” Peter says, and without hesitation the driver moves on. Perhaps it is ordinary to run into birders at five in the morning but being that birder I know that it is a special moment. It’s not just the cold air snapping me awake it’s the sense of a mission, of a collective hunt.  We have a task and we want to do it well. That is, we want to count accurately but also account for as many species as might be making this patch of land their home.

And then there it is, that funny, whinny sound that the screech owl makes coming from one side of the road, then from the other. We both light up, delighted by hearing this voice from the dark. We do not linger to savor the sound of the screech owl, but rather scoot up the hill to a spot Peter imagines would be good for Saw-whet owls. He hasn’t heard or seen any there, but it’s an area dense in hemlocks, near a swamp. The chances of finding this marvelous boreal winter visitor feel slim.  But Peter has developed a new faith in the Saw-whet. “People don’t see Saw-whets, because they don’t look for them,” he explains. “You have to believe in them,” he says, as if he is asking me to believe in God.

Two weeks earlier, we had gathered with a half dozen other bird enthusiasts to watch researcher Glenn Proudfoot band Saw-whet owls on the Mohonk Preserve. The night we were there, a dozen owls flew into the mist nets, strung between the bushy pine trees. They tangled in the nets as they flew toward the loud call of a Saw-whet blaring into the night air from speakers. They are curious birds, wondering who this enormous cousin might be. The birds, once extracted from the tangle, were stuffed into empty tomato paste cans, their little feet sticking out the bottom. The birds were tagged, weighed, and measured. All the while, I admired the stocky little bird and relished its tenacity as it clicked its bills in protest over being fondled, prodded, flipped upside down. Saw-whets have enormous eyes, and in the light of the warm cabin, the black irises were large circles rimmed by a vibrant yellow. I stood outside in the cold and watched as they flew free, and I wished them a silent good flight. Because I had seen a dozen that night, had touched those so soft owl feathers, I was ready to believe in the Saw-whet, but I didn’t believe it was possible to drive out on a dark road and find one.

When we get out of the car we realize that the iPod has frozen, not to return all day. So, improbably, Peter begins to whistle, the hoot-hoot-hoot that rises through the scale. We stand, inhaling the frozen air (now 15 degrees) and looking up at the stars. There we see the longest shooting star either of us has ever seen. It makes a complete arc of the sky, and keeps going, as if plummeting into the trees. Not three minutes later we hear the funny little click that a Saw-whet makes. We both jump with excitement, and then the owl begins to hoot back to us. And another joins us from the other side of the swamp. We have a Saw-whet orchestra going and we laugh with glee. I figure if we only see juncos and Canada geese the rest of the day I will still be satisfied.

Our daylight hours begin back in farmland. In the grey light of dawn we hear overhead chatter. We look up at what looks like snowflakes. Snow buntings. We walk the edge of the field where they fly and contemplate walking onto the field. “That is exactly what they ask you not to do,” Peter explains. But it is tempting. We take a few steps down a long, dirt driveway and as if we’d pushed a button, a car drives toward us. I flag the car. “Do you mind if we walk down your driveway?” I ask. “Sure, I’m a birder too,” the man says and drives off.

We spend some time with the buntings, then move on, driving the roads as they curve and weave. We pick up the expected species, and are unable to count the number of pigeons winging in and out of a large red barn, or the number of Canada geese tromping through a wide field. We stop on route 209, and scan a wide field. In the far distance, I point out a white dot. We pull out the scope. Peter curses. “It’s a good bird and I can’t tell what it is.” He marches off across the field, camera in hand. Twenty minutes later he is back with a report, and a smile: Cooper’s hawk.

We drive out narrow roads that dead end in secret wooded openings. We pass farmhouses surrounded by pastures with cows, or at one farm, alpacas. A wagon wheel decorates one lawn. As we pass isolated, warm homes, I wonder as I so often do what people do with their lives here in the woods. Do they work in Kingston, a half hour drive away? Or have they figured out a country life, growing their vegetables and storing potatoes to make it through the winter? We search for bird feeders, and count the expected juncos, house sparrows, titmouse, and somehow all day manage not to see a house finch. Despite our movement, and that the temperature is now into the 20s, I’m cold. I’m wearing four layers of pants, and the same on top. I’ve got heavy, white bunny boots on my feet (an early Christmas gift from Peter). These are the same sorts of boots I was issued by the National Science Foundation and wore in Antarctica. There, I stood around for five hours one day counting Adelie penguins and never felt a twinge of cold. Is it possible the cold of Ulster County is greater than that on Ross Island? I slip hand warmers into my gloves and into my boots.

Near nine in the morning we stop at a convenience store. I’ve brought two-day’s worth of food: turkey soup (perhaps that is why we did not see a single turkey all day!), ham and cheese sandwiches, chips and vegetables to munch on, cookies, and a thermos of tea. But we need some chocolate to get us through the morning. The stop is a good one. Perched in a tree near the eastern end of the lot is a Merlin. Peter takes photographs of the upright, elegant bird, its mottled chest, long tail, and piercing eyes.

Mid-day Peter says, “We need a red-breasted nuthatch.” I am holding the list in my hand; Peter is holding the list in his head. He turns the car and drives out to deep woods, a stand of pine trees where he knows a red-breasted nuthatch should be. We find it. It is so precise, so easy that in that moment I realize that most of the birds we have seen have not been found by luck or by accident (except, perhaps, that Merlin). Peter knows where certain species live in this sector because he is familiar with it, and he knows what lives here in winter. But more than that, he thinks about each bird, what sort of habitat it needs, what time of day it moves to get its food. So often when we are birding he will comment, “We really should be seeing X,” and then, as if he has conjured the bird, X appears. And so in the crooks and bushes, the trees and fields of this patch of Ulster County he is attune to where the birds will be looking for a berry or a mouse and at what time of day they might be busy doing so. And all day, we have been there to see, to count, to admire, to accept yet another gift.

In the mornings while I am reading the New York Times and drinking my coffee, Peter is drinking tea and pondering bird information: lists, books, images. Often I wonder what he is doing, what he sees as he compares notes from one year to the next, as he scans lists. Now I understand that he has been working for weeks, perhaps months, to make this day seamless, to find the species we should find (plus some), to be at the right place at the right time of day. I don’t say anything, of course, but silently I am grateful, and also impressed that we found that red-breasted nuthatch.

The rest of the day unfolds in a daze of counting, walking, stopping, driving. By 4 in the afternoon we have driven 66.2 miles, and walked a few as well. We are exhausted. We plunk down in a field, snacks at hand, scope at the ready, and wait to see horned lark. “The larks will come,” he says in his best French accent. Every year, Peter has seen horned larks at this spot at dusk.

The sun cascades to the west, a gorgeous sunset, oranges in a sharp blue sky, and we wait. Then we worry we will be late for the after-count dinner, an incredible spread created by Mark DeDea and Kyla Haber. We pack up, happy with the 42 species of bird that we saw, and the 1,480 individuals that we counted.

Back in Kingston, the circle unites to offer up numbers and species. Everyone is tired but a bit high from the day, the long hours, the focus. The dark room where we gather is festive, plates set, and the smell of good food permeating the air. Everyone is pleased with his or her sightings, eager to share. We gather at the long table, one big family of birders. I feel like we should say a prayer of thanks to the birds, but instead we eat. Then comes the list.

Leading us is Steve Chorvas, who is not just a birder, but an all-around remarkable naturalist. He’s serious and thorough as he goes through each species. I wait as he calls out Saw-whet. Each sector calls out none. “A pair,” Peter says as calmly as he can, as if this might be normal. I am ready to tell the story of Peter whistling into the dark, but I keep it until later. “That might be considered a rarity,” Steve says, and continues with the list. There are a few other rarities reported for this region: a killdeer, a broad-wing hawk, a ruby-crowned kinglet, wood ducks, and ring-necked ducks. As Steve goes through the list, we learn from our count that Carolina wren populations are up and robin populations are low. Canada geese are doing just fine, but no one saw a pipit.

Steve calls out bird after bird. When Peter reports no great horned owls he turns. “How come you didn’t find any great horned?” he asks.

Peter shrugs, “I guess I’m not very good at this.”

Steve hesitates for a moment. He turns back to his computer screen, ready to move on, but a smile appears and then, still focused on the screen, the smile spreads, his face lights up, and he starts to laugh. Soon, we are all laughing, from the wonderful absurdity of Peter’s comment, from the pleasure of birding all day, of finding a Saw-whet and not finding a great horned, of sharing this deep, odd love of birds.

CBC NYML: 30 people in 10 field parties saw 11,840 individuals of 72 species.

All photos, except the Saw-whet owl, taken on CBC day December 18, 2010 by Peter Scoenberger.