Counting Birds

Last March Peter spread detailed road maps of the mid-Hudson Valley across his dining room table. He spent hours with a compass, analyzing roads and the Hudson River, bays, marshes, cities. Finally one day he plunked down that compass on the town of Glasco, right on the banks of the Hudson River and drew a circle with a fifteen mile diameter. It covered both sides of the river, Ulster and Dutchess counties, with a smidgen of Columbia county in there as well. There were rich sections in this circle like the north and south Tivoli Bay and the Esopus Bend Preserve in Saugerties. But above all, the count circle included the Hudson River. And thus, a new Christmas Bird Count circle was born. Mark DeDea was the inspiration for the circle; Peter was the map man. Forty eight of us headed into the field on December 28 to count.

I joined Peter in sector D, an area in Dutchess County that includes the vast Grieg farm where several special birds were found this fall: a Red Phalarope, a LeConte’s Sparrow and a Nelson’s Sparrow. We rose at 4:30 to find owls. The first two locations we called left us with the deep silence of night. A final try brought two Screech Owls singing their crazy song from one side of the road, with a chorus of a Great Horned Owl hooting in from the other side.

At seven, we were joined by Cathy, a newer birder, so I instantly had sympathy with her. “Ask questions,” I encouraged. “Make sure you see the birds that are being called.” Also along was Vanessa, a post-doc in wildlife biology, who grew up in the Hudson Valley but was now living and working in Georgia. She got out of her car and her face lit up, “Horned Larks.” She had said she birded well by ear and she wasn’t joking.

We pulled on mud boots to walk across the Grieg Farm to find White Crowned Sparrows in the brambles near the barn and Pipits in the far field. The Pipits were in the furrows of the field, rising and vanishing so fast, their busyness dizzying. The sun hid behind gray clouds, and the temperature hovered just around freezing. Movement kept our spirits and temperature up.

The day unfolded like the treasure hunt that it is: the Cooper’s Hawk we for a moment thought might be a Goshawk; the Yellow-Rumped Warbler that flew off before we all got a good look; the Canada Geese that in fact were an enormous flock of Wild Turkey; the Bald Eagle that flew over the car; the Red Shouldered Hawk sitting serene and nearly invisible in a field; the chorus of Grackles, 2,500 strong; the Swamp Sparrow that Peter knew would be hiding out in a far swampy area of Grieg Farm.

Except for Grieg Farm most of the area we were counting in is rural, farmland,  ragged forests,  or small pockets of development in what was once an apple orchard. It’s not a place you’d come to in order to bird. And yet here we were, finding a wonderful range of birds—forty-eight species by the end of the day.

We got in and out of the car a hundred times, walked over five miles in fields and on roads, got cold, then hot, ate snacks to keep us going and talked about birds as we peered out the window looking for movement, shape, scoured the sky for a Vulture. “This is where we should find a Shrike,” we said again and again as we passed open, busy areas. But, the Shrike was not where it was supposed to be.

At the end of the day I had my eye on the map. What roads had we not driven/walked/scoured for birds. There is one short road at the edge of our sector, a nondescript road through the woods, with a cell phone tower looming nearby. We had half an hour before quitting time and to be thorough I thought we should at least drive down Whalesback Road. We got out of the car, and immediately were aware the woods were active: two Downy Woodpeckers, two Flickers, lots of Robins. We had a small surge of excitement over this find. Cathy, who had been quiet most of the day, had her binoculars to her eyes. “What’s that black bird?” she asked calmly.

Vanessa followed Cathy’s gaze and smiled. “A Rusty Blackbird!” A great find late in the day. Perhaps our best bird. I was delighted to realize how all four of us were needed to see, to identify, to count these birds. We were a great team.

But what I also realized is that as a person who associates animal life, bird life with natural places—with the Tivoli Bays (where they found nine Screech Owls!), for instance—that birds in fact are everywhere, anywhere. I’ve learned this again and again, that sometimes just a slice of good habitat is all a Rusty Blackbird needs. But this is so counter to all of my romantic notions of nature and its sacredness, my desire to see huge swaths of wilderness for the birds, other animals, for us. Seeking birds on count day takes me onto roads and fields and in these moments wild and what I consider human or built merge or alternate.  The line isn’t so clear out there. I like that the lines of my thinking need to be redrawn as well.

Of course the birds don’t know of these distinctions I make between what is nature and not. They just know where they can find food, shelter, a place to spread their wings. Is that not what I do as well? What we all do?

There’s something to learn from counting birds; there’s something to learn from birds.