Birders reveal new bird secrets

The Audubon Society is calling upon volunteers on Saipan to join the birders across the western hemisphere and participate in Audubon’s longest running wintertime tradition, the annual Christmas Bird Count on Sunday, Dec. 18.

Counts are open to birders of all skill levels. This year, nearly 2,000 individual counts are scheduled to take place throughout the Americas from Dec. 14, 2004 to Jan. 5, 2005.

“Having fun while birding yields important results that affect bird conservation,” says Geoff Le Baron, National Audubon’s Christmas Bird Count Director. “Audubon and our partners at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center and the Boreal Species Initiative have analyzed information collected by CBC participants over the last several decades: for the first time, we have good estimates of population trends for several important species.”

The CBC began over a century ago when 27 conservationists in 25 localities, led by scientist and writer Frank Chapman, changed the course of ornithological history. On Christmas Day 1900, the small group posed an alternative to the “side hunt,” a Christmas day activity in which teams competed to see who could shoot the most birds and small mammals. Instead, Chapman proposed to identify, count, and record all the birds they saw, found what is now considered the world’s most significant citizen based conservation effort and a more than century old institution.

Today, over 55,000 volunteers from all 50 states, every Canadian province, parts of Central and South America, Bermuda, the West Indies, and Pacific Islands will count and record every individual bird and bird species seen in a specified area. During the 105th count last year, about 69 million birds were counted.

Apart from its attraction as a social and competitive event, CBC reveals valuable scientific data. Now in its 106th year, CBC is larger than ever, expanding its geographic range and accumulating information about the winter distributions of various birds, and it is vital in monitoring the status of resident and migratory birds across the Western Hemisphere. The data, 100-percent volunteer generated, have become a crucial part of the U.S. government’s natural history monitoring database. Articles published in the 103rd CBC issue of American Birds helped Ornithologist better understand the magnitude of the effects of West Nile virus on regional bird populations. Count results from 1900 to the present are available through Audubon’s website: www.audubon.org/bird/cbc.

Come and participate in the 106th CBC on Saipa. We will be meeting at the American Memorial Park parking lot in Garapan at 6am. The cost is $5 per participant. If you have any questions please contact Shelly Kremer at 323-6003. (PR)