It’s once again time for the Audubon Christmas Bird Count. These pine grosbeaks are outside the Grand Marais “counting circle” at Dennis and Mickey Chick’s home on Hungry Jack Lake, but there are many others that will be counted on Saturday, December 15.
A wonderful tradition will continue this December with the 2012 Audubon Christmas Bird Count (CBC). The count will be held Saturday, December 15 for the Grand Marais “counting circle.”
The counting circle is a 7.5- mile radius circle from a point three miles south of the middle of Devil Track Lake. The count circle covers Highway 61 to Lindskog Road and north, some of County Road 60, the Gunflint Trail to the landfill road, Pine Mountain Road to the backside of Elbow Lake, Devil Track Road to Bally Creek Road, Ball Club Road to The Grade, Pike Lake Road, Highway 61 west to Cascade Lodge, and all of the lakeshore between Lindskog Road and Cascade Lodge.
Christmas Bird Count Compiler Jeremy Ridlbauer said both feeder watchers and walking/driving birders are needed for the count. Participants will need to identify birds and count the highest number of a single species in an area.
Ridlbauer said, “You can cover as much or as little as you’d like. You can be a novice to a professional, since CBCs are open to birders of all skill levels.”
Participants will also be asked to count any species of birds that they see in the count circle during the “count week,” which happens for the three days prior and three days after the count day of Saturday.
Ridlbauer said, “For count day, you’ll need a guide book, binoculars, a scope for lake birding, warm clothes, warm boots/Yak Traks, a log book to record your observations, and a keen and quick eye to count our winter rarities! If you are a feeder watcher, keep your feeders full through count day to encourage birds to be there on that day, and have various foods available in feeders and on the ground to entice as many species as possible.”
While Audubon’s National CBC effort began Christmas Day 1900, the first known Minnesota CBCs were conducted on Christmas Day 1905 in Minneapolis and Red Wing. During those last 106 years, the Christmas Bird Count has been conducted uninterrupted in the state and has grown to include almost 70 census circles and involved more than 28,000 participants. Each and every year more than 1,000 participants canvass the state to conduct the survey.
These participants have logged nearly 77,000 total hours, traveling approximately 548,000 miles. The Minnesota CBC has tallied over 8.5 million birds of 201 species. 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 count and record every individual bird and bird species seen in a specified area. Each count group completes a census of the birds found during one 24-hour period between December 14 and January 5 in a designated circle 15 miles in diameter, about 177 square miles.
If you would like to take part, contact Jeremy Ridlbauer @ sundew@boreal.org or (218) 370-0733 to notify us about what area you can cover or what feeder or area you’ll be watching.
Ridlbauer said, “We’d like to contact you or have you contact us on the count day to report results.”
Participants will meet at 4:15 p.m. on count day at a location to be announced to compile results from anyone who can make it there at that time.
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