Birders get ready for annual counts
With the approaching holidays, the Audubon Society’s annual Christmas Bird Counts take to the field this month.
Audubon will host more than a half dozen regional opportunities for citizen scientists to participate.
The tradition dates back 116 years, and thousands of volunteers throughout the country spend one day each year counting bird species in their area. The annual census enables Audubon, other organizations and research scientists to track changes in the size and location of bird populations.
Two of the region’s longest-running counts take place in Kalispell and Bigfork.
Flathead Audubon’s Pete Fisher and Craig Hohenberger will prepare participants for the count during the group’s regular meeting Dec. 14. They will discuss the different early-winter birds that counters can expect to see and summarize population trends.
The meeting will be at 7 p.m. in the Gateway Community Center’s United Way Conference Room in Kalispell.
Along with the Upper Swan count, the Bigfork count is the first of the season on Dec. 19.
The “count circle” or area in which participants will record bird sightings is centered on the Little Brown Church north of town. It spans more than 30 miles of the Swan and Flathead rivers, as well as the north end of Flathead Lake.
The Bigfork area includes Lower Valley croplands, spruce-fir forest and cedar-hemlock forest. It was the first count in the state to report 90 bird species in a single year and has recorded nearly 150 species over the years.
For more information on the Bigfork count, contact Hohenberger at 890-1629 or by email at asoleado2003@yahoo.com.
ON Jan. 3, after New Year’s Day, the Kalispell bird count will include Evergreen, part of the Flathead River corridor, the Owen Sowerwine Natural Area, Happy Valley, Herron Park and Kuhn’s Wildlife Area.
The event is still new enough that counters still have much to discover, including homes and bird feeders in more urban areas.
Participants will meet at Finnegan’s Restaurant in Kalispell for a 7 a.m. breakfast before heading out in search of birds.
Those who would like to participate in the Kalispell count can leave their contact information at Flathead Audubon’s Dec. 14 meeting or they can contact Fisher at 250-9624 or by email at fisherpete88@yahoo.com.
Other counts in the area include:
- Upper Swan, Dec. 19. Contact Jody Wolff at 754-4002 or jmw4002@blackfoot.net
- Ninepipe National Wildlife Refuge, Dec. 20. Contact Brian Williams at 721-1467 or brianwilliams406@gmail.com
- Eureka, Dec. 20. Contact Lewis and Lynda Young at 889-3492 or llyoung@interbel.net
- Glacier National Park, Dec. 20. Contact Lisa Bate at 888-7833 or Lisa_Bate@nps.gov or Jami Belt at 888-7986 or Jami_Belt@nps.gov.
- Troy, Jan. 2. Contact Donald Jones, 295-4291, or gr8gray@frontiernet.net.