The Daily Inter Lake

Birders make plans for annual Christmas counts

Join Flathead Audubon at 7 p.m. Monday for its monthly meeting and a prelude to the annual Christmas bird counts. The meeting is in the Community Room of The Summit, Kalispell.

This year's annual precount slide show will be a twist on Dan Casey's usual overview, identification tips, Christmas bird count trivia, conservation and natural history tidbits, anecdotes and predictions.

Susannah Casey, who has been doing counts with her husband, Dan, for more than 25 years, will recount "the rest of the story" with her tales of winter adventures counting birds at Somers, Kalispell and the Ninepipe National Wildlife Refuge.

The presentation will include pictures of common and rare birds.

At the end of the talk, teams will be organized for the Bigfork Christmas bird count on Dec. 16.

To take part in Audubon's annual Christmas bird counts call Dan Casey at 857-3143 (home) or 756-2681 (office) as soon as possible. In addition to the Bigfork count on Dec. 16, the Kalispell count is Dec. 31.

People can participate either in the field or as feeder watchers.

Bigfork counters meet at the Bigfork Senior Center at 5 p.m. the day of the count for a potluck compilation dinner.

Teams for the Kalispell count are traditionally organized over breakfast at Finnegan's Restaurant at 7:30 a.m. on the morning of the count.

Participating only requires a willingness to spend at least part of the day outdoors with one or more other birders, counting all birds in a designated part of a count circle. Or a participant living in a count circle can just count feeder birds that day.

All skill levels are welcome.

Information gathered is used to analyze the distribution and trends of wintering bird populations. For more information about either the Bigfork or Kalispell counts call Casey at the numbers above or e-mail dcasey@abcbirds.org or caseys4@centurytel.net.

Dates and contacts for other area Christmas Bird Counts are:

. Eureka Christmas Bird Count - Dec. 16. For details, call Lewis or Lynda Young at 889-3492.

. Glacier National Park Christmas Bird Count - Dec. 17. Nine routes, some half-day, some full day.

For details, contact Susan Sindt at 892-7406 or sjsindt@hotmail.com

. Ninepipe National Wildlife Refuge Christmas Bird Count - Dec. 17. For details, contact Jim Rogers at 883-6351, ext. 247, or jrogers@polson.k12.mt.us

. Swan Valley Christmas Bird Count - Date to be announced. For details, call Steve Lamar at 754-2745.