The Christmas count always has its surprises and moments of suspense, its triumphs and failures, and most important of all, a new batch of devotees. People who’ve taken part in one count seldom want to miss the next. And the chances are they won’t have to, no matter what area of the United States or Canada they happen to be in when December rolls around. In 1964, over 75° counts were submitted, and some twenty-five were turned down because of rule-breaking, illegibility and other reasons. The number of people participating in a count varied from one, such as Ramon Burron of Cambridge Bay, N. W. Territories, who spent four hours walking five miles in 50°-below-zero weather to record a single species — eleven rock ptarmigans — to the eighty-six counters of Coot Bay-Everglades National Park, Florida, who covered their balmy region on foot, by car, by boat and by airplane to record 174 species.
Dedicated birders frequently participate in more than one count, some in as many as half a dozen. This is especially true in Texas, and I must mention here what birders from other parts of the country learn for themselves, that for sheer verve and vigor the members of the Texas Ornithological Society cannot be surpassed.
Many birdwatchers traveling in December will stop to take part in the nearest count and find themselves in the company of complete strangers, wading through mudflats, climbing cliffs and crossing rivers they didn’t even know existed. Thus, Brooks Atkinson, a New York birdwatcher who used to dabble in drama criticism, was with one of our Santa Barbara groups in 1963. So was retired Navy Captain Elgin Hurlbert with his wife, Wini. They live in Pacific Grove, California, and after taking part in the Monterey Peninsula count, they came down for ours a week later, prior to starting out on a long trailer trip across the country. We lost track of them until more than a year later when the 1964 Christmas count edition of Audubon Field Notes was published, and we found their names listed among the counters both at Bentsen State Park and La Sal Vieja, Texas. A number of birders, wanting to be members just once of a champion count team, have journeyed to Cocoa, Florida, around Christmas time to join Allan Cruickshank’s group, which at one time held the record of 204 species. This record fell in 1966, when Cocoa upped its count to 206 and was tied by San Diego, California.
There are no rules concerning how the prescribed territory is to be covered in a Christmas count. The commonest ways are by car and by foot, but many other modes of transportation have been listed including skis, snowshoes, canoes, horses, airplanes, jeeps, trucks and motorboats. I have bicycled over part of my territory and on one occasion, when sea birds were blanketed by a deep fog, Ken swam three-quarters of a mile in a 52° ocean to get us a pair of horned grebes for our list.
The Audubon Society’s insistence that the Christmas bird count is not a competition seems a bit like claiming that human nature is not human. Of course it’s a competition, even if you’re only competing with your own record of last year or the year before. If you want to go beyond this and compete with Cocoa, Florida, Tomales Bay or San Diego, California, Freeport or Houston, Texas, good luck! You’ll need it.
Old-timers in the field are astonished — some of them disgusted — by the fact that birdwatching has become an accepted form of recreation. Credit for this must go to one man in particular, Roger Tory Peterson. He has made birdwatching respectable and it has made him famous. A fair exchange.
10
Mnemos
The bird arriving here in the spring is dominated by one great purpose. He must find a place to breed, a nesting site safe from predators, with food and water available and suitable singing posts to announce his identity and intentions, his charm and vigor and the fact that he has title to a nice piece of real estate. The bird arriving in autumn to spend the winter has only himself to consider and is less affected by changes in his environment. The Krigers’ Baltimore oriole and red-breasted sapsucker have returned to the same willow every winter for six years, though there is now a large house practically on top of the tree and a lively family with a dog and cat in the yard.
The land bird population of our area in the winter remains fairly constant in spite of the encroachments of people. This is due partly to the emerging adaptability of the birds themselves and partly to the fact that every new development, whether it’s an apartment complex, a housing tract, a shopping center or even a parking lot, must be appropriately landscaped. This is, of course, done for the sake of people, not birds, but the birds get the benefit. It is a happy example of serendipity.
If similar arrangements could be made which would indirectly benefit shore birds, their future would look less dim. Every year some wetlands disappear, more sloughs are turned into marinas, more beaches become parking lots, more lakes and rivers are polluted with wastes and pesticides, yet California must provide winter food and sanctuary for thousands upon thousands of shore birds. The hummingbird who has lost his favorite patch of wild tobacco to the bulldozer can easily settle for the fuchsias in the garden of a condominium or the melaleucas planted along a new street. But the egret, deprived of his pond, cannot switch to a swimming pool.
The concept of green belts has been widely accepted, at least in theory. The concept of wet belts, however, is a different matter. We have no local ordinances which guarantee the preservation of a certain percentage of each wet area for the benefit of wildlife, and proposals for such an ordinance have not been seriously considered. To the person blinded by ignorance and fear, a slough is not a place of wonder, it is a breeding ground for mosquitoes, a source of odors and a temptation for children to get their clothes muddy. To the birder a slough is where the great blue heron stands motionless, waiting for a minnow, where the kingfisher rattles from a tree stump and the Forster’s tern hawks for dragonflies or dozes on a piece of driftwood. It is where the snowy egret shuffles through the mud on his big yellow feet and the phalarope spins for her supper like a hungry ballerina; where the black-necked stilt and the greater yellowlegs fold up like jackknives to rest, and the sora rail, silent as a shadow, tracks a frog through the salicornia.
With few exceptions, the birds of the Pacific Ocean and of the shores bordering it are seen by local birders only in the fall and winter. They become so familiar to us in their non-breeding plumage that the first time I saw a dunlin in breeding plumage I thought, for one glorious moment, I’d found a new bird. Sometimes in the spring when the plumages are changing we catch a glimpse of a black-bellied plover in the midst of dressing for the most important occasion of his life, or an avocet just assuming his bridegroom’s blush or a royal tern his black nuptial cap. But in the main we’re accustomed to shore birds at their drabbest and most difficult to identify.
Among birds, as among people, for every rule there’s a rule breaker, and in this case it’s the willet. He looks exactly the same in June as he does in January because he carries his breeding plumage under his wings and all he has to do is raise them in order to be known, and, presumably, loved.
Just as the willet is the exception, so there are exceptions among willets. Some do not develop the hormonic stimulation necessary to instigate migration to the breeding grounds and consequently will remain here for the summer. We became well acquainted with one of these lone birds through our German shepherd, Brandy. Brandy was born in May and in July we took him on his first trip to the quiet beach which he was to visit every day from then on. The shore birds were long since gone and I was surprised to be greeted by the shrill cries of a willet protesting the invasion of his privacy. Brandy, too, was surprised. In his limited experience birds were inoffensive creatures that sat in trees or ate quietly on ledges or porch railings. This squawking fury baffled him and he turned and ran back to Ken for protection.