The Christmas Bird Count is underway. From now until Jan. 5, birders all over Maine are counting every bird they can find.
It all started 124 years ago, as an alternative to the Christmas “side hunt.” In the late 19th century, it was common practice for hunters to choose sides on Christmas morning.
The teams would head into the woods and shoot everything they could find, furred or feathered. At the end of the day, the biggest pile of dead animals won.
Frank M. Chapman had a better idea. He was the most popular bird authority of his day, having written one of the first field guides in history — his “Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America,” published five years earlier.
Chapman proposed holding an annual event to count birds alive, rather than dead. On Dec. 25, 1900, 27 birders took to the field for the first Christmas Bird Count.
The idea took off, and the tradition continues. Last year, 76,780 people participated.
What started out as a substitute for wanton slaughter has become the oldest and largest citizen science endeavor in the world.
It might seem odd to count birds in winter, after most songbirds have left the country. It turns out to be a good time to count year-round resident birds, and all the birds that come down from Canada.
It is virtually impossible to count birds on their nesting grounds across Canada. The hinterlands are an impenetrable mix of boreal forest, marshy muskeg and barren tundra. There are few roads, and fewer people. To coin a phrase, “You can’t get there from here.”
In winter, many of those subarctic birds come down here where they are relatively easy to count.
My favorite example is the rusty blackbird. It resembles the common grackle in size and color, but it nests in wet, boggy northern forests.
The bird is rapidly disappearing. Populations have fallen by 85 to 90 percent. If we tried to census rusty blackbirds in breeding season, we’d never find enough to count. But they winter across the southern states, where they are reported on Christmas Bird Counts.
Waterfowl present a similar problem. Except for common eiders, virtually all the saltwater ducks we see in winter are freshwater ducks in summer. They breed in remote, inaccessible wetlands. Furthermore, they’re doing their best to hide while nesting. They’re uncountable in summer, easily countable in winter.
The National Audubon Society now oversees the count. Its website provides a wealth of historical information. With 123 years of data in the bank, long-term trends become apparent — and they are alarming.
On average, there has been a 68-percent population decline in common American species since 1967.
There is some good news. Bald eagles have finally recovered from near-extinction. Likewise, peregrine falcons have reclaimed most of their historical range. Both were nearly wiped out by DDT before the pesticide was banned in 1972.
Other trends show the effects of climate change. Some neotropical migrants are lingering longer, appearing on Christmas counts long after they should have flown south.
Southern birds are moving north. Of the 305 bird species found in North America in winter, nearly 60 percent have seen a range shift northward.
Concurrently, northern birds are disappearing. Across the continent, 5 percent of our evening grosbeaks disappear every year. Cumulatively, the evening grosbeak population has dropped by 75 percent within the last 50 years.
Maine’s boreal chickadees are vanishing. These brown-headed cousins of the black-capped chickadee are rarely found anymore along the Down East coast, and their northern forest numbers are decreasing from here to Manitoba.
Even birds that are doing well show signs of moving north. American goldfinch numbers are increasing almost 1 percent annually. But more now inhabit the northern states, with correspondingly fewer in the south.
When the climate was colder, belted kingfishers migrated farther south to find the open water they needed.
Although their overall numbers remain about the same, more are showing up on Canadian counts in winter, while declining in the deep south. Numbers are way up in Labrador. It’s now a winter bird in Alaska.
Even southern birds are becoming Yankees. Overall, the northern cardinal population is increasing, due to range expansion into New England and Canada.
Numbers have fallen elsewhere, including five states where the northern cardinal is the official state bird.
Even the ubiquitous European starling is increasing in the north, decreasing in the south.
It’s not too late to get in on the action. Maine Audubon oversees our counts, and all you need to know is at maineaudubon.org.
