LITTLE ROCK — The 15th annual Great Backyard Bird Count begins Friday in Arkansas and across the continent.
Through Monday, tens of thousands of Americans (and Canadians, too) will be taking note of birds - and taking notes. When the counting’s done, all these bird lovers will use one website - www.birdsource.org/gbbc - to submit results that will fatten already gigantic databases managed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society (with Canadian partner Bird Studies Canada and sponsor Wild Birds Unlimited).
It’s a form of “citizen science,” with laymen collecting data for scientists.
More to the point for laymen, says Northwest Arkansas bird expert Joe Neal, “fun is what energizes it.” He says it’s so much fun to wander around counting birds that he’ll do it even if nobody else does.
But back to the science: Cornell and its partners will compile and map the tallies. Then the maps can be compared with maps from previous years and decades, as well as results from other bird counts.
Neal says that just looking at birds is “good for the spirit, for sure. But data collected in a more systematic way can be used to analyze birds. Are birds increasing? Are they declining? Where are birds at a certain time of the year? How abundant are they? That kind of thing. You can do trend analysis.”
For instance, the 2011 count suggested that the continental population of American crows is rebounding from enormous declines suffered in this century’s first decade, when West Nile virus spread in the United States. Given maps that document crows’ numbers, scientists can begin to find out whether the birds have adapted or that virus is dying out.
Scientists are also tracking bird population shifts to monitor the effects of climate change, Neal says.
At Hobbs State Park-Conservation Area, Assistant Park Superintendent Jay Schneider adds that apart from any scientific value, “Citizen science engages more citizens and makes them more aware, and that’s the goal of any environmental education, to make them stewards of the natural resources.”
EASY DOES IT
Bird-counters might spend 15 minutes peering through a window at home and listing whatever flits past a feeder. Or they could tramp for hours in quiet woods, alone or with experts.
Some will be the same people who turn out every year for the Christmas Bird Count, the Breeding Bird Survey, the Migratory Bird Count. Some will be trying to identify flying critters for the first time.
“It’s for all kinds of people, old and young,” Neal says. The Fayetteville resident will lead the Northwest Arkansas Audubon Society and anyone else who cares to come along Friday on a relatively systematic bird-counting outing at Devil’s Den State Park.
He’ll meet you in the park’s Lee Creek parking lot at 9 a.m. He expects “people limping along, the great birders, the brand new birders, the young mothers carrying babies on their back - they’re all welcome.”
Do your bit for a quarter hour or hang with him all day.
And don’t be intimidated by the science part, Neal says.
The Great Backyard Bird Count website provides blank sheets set up by region with lists of birds common there. Counters report “the highest number you saw during whatever time period you counted. If you were out for 30 minutes and at one point you saw eight cardinals together, that’s what you put down,” he says.
“If you see 5,000 grackles, that’s what you put on the data sheet. You just make your best estimate. You just do the best you can.”
OTHER GROUPS
Expert-guided bird counting events are planned in other state parks, too.
At Petit Jean State Park near Morrilton, interpreters Rachel Engebrecht and BT Jones plan three programs. From 2 to 2:45 p.m. Friday, visitors can join Engebrecht beside a picture window in the visitor center.
“No special talent on counting birds is necessary,” she says. Bird feeders outside the window attract “mostly songbirds” she says, and she’ll help you identify the species.
And Jones plans relatively short and easy counting hikes from 2 to 2:30 p.m. Saturday and 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. Sunday on park trails. They can loan you binoculars, and they will submit the results.
At Hobbs State Park-Conservation Area in Rogers, visitors can contribute to the park’s bird count Saturday.
“We’re going to have a table set up in our visitors center from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. with basics of bird-watching and then the checklists that you can take out and spend as little as 15 minutes to half a day or more. Keep track of what birds you see, and we’ll collect those back and send them in,” Assistant Superintendent Jay Schneider says.
Similar programs will be offered at DeGray Lake Resort State Park in Bismarck and other state parks. Details are in the calendar at www.arkansasstateparks.com (search for “bird”).
In Pulaski County, the Audubon Society of Central Arkansas plans a field trip to Two Rivers Park and Lake Maumelle. Karen Holliday says everyone is welcome to meet the group at 8 a.m. in Two Rivers Park. They’ll finish their adventure about noon.
She recommends knee high rubber boots for wading in the shallows. And participants should take their own water, snacks and a spotter scope or binoculars.
More information is at ladyhawke1@att.net or (501) 920-3246.
In Little Rock, David Luneau, president of the Otter Creek Homeowners Association, says anyone can join him in looking for birds in Otter Creek. “A few years ago I counted 21 species of birds in my backyard on the count,” he writes on the University of Arkansas e-mail “Birds of Arkansas” discussion listserv (ARBIRD-L). Anyone who’d like to spend an hour or two looking in Otter Creek can e-mail him at mdluneau@ualr.edu.
But you don’t need to join any group to participate. Just follow the directions at the website, Neal says.
“You can’t do anything in pouring rain,” he notes, but cold weather and overcast skies won’t stop him. “I prefer a warm winter morning,” he says, but “we’re just like the post office, we deliver the birds, whatever the weather.”
ActiveStyle, Pages 28 on 02/13/2012