Winging It during the Holidays

THE AUDUBON

IT'S SIX IN THE MORNING, THE DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS. Hundreds of people are out in the cold, brittle predawn air, binoculars in hand, scanning the murky skies. They're not misguided souls looking for Santa Claus a day late; they're looking for birds. The dedicated group comprises members of Arizona's National Audubon Society chapters, and each year at about this time they take part in the Christmas Bird Count. Held all over the U.S. and Canada as well as parts of South and Central America and the West Indies, the count is an important ecological tool for scientists who use the data to track migratory birds' travels each year, checking which species are declining or increasing, thereby monitoring environmental stresses. The Arizona count is particularly important because the state is a major flyway for birds during their annual spring and fall migrations. My first introduction to the bird counts came one December morning near Christmas about four years ago. My husband, Jonathan, and I had just bought a house along one of Tucson's last naturally vegetated dry washes, also called arroyos. Thickly lined with mesquite and paloverde trees, catclaw and desert willow bushes, these lush greenways are havens for wildlife. While just sitting down to enjoy coffee and the paper, we noticed a car speed up to the bridge over the wash; before it stopped the doors flew open, and two women jumped out and ran to the wash, binoculars already scanning the foliage. Curiosity roused, Jonathan and I wandered onto the front porch to watch. "Verdin," said one. "Northern flicker," replied the other. "Female pyrrhuloxia," said one. "Two Inca doves," replied the other. "Another starling," said one. "Possible yellow-rumped warbler," replied the other. "Okay," said one, "time to go." "Six confirmed, one maybe. Okay, let's go," replied the other as she made notes on a tablet. They ran back to their car and zoomed off.

HOLIDAY BIRD COUNT

(TOP, LEFT TO RIGHT) The white-crowned sparrow is noted for its song consisting of several notes and a twittering trill. One feature of the pyrrhuloxia that distinguishes it from the cardinal is its thick curved bill. BOTH BY JOHN CANCALOSI The solitary Cooper's hawk preys upon songbirds and small mammals. G.C. KELLEY (ABOVE, LEFT, INSET) A sociable American coot skims the Colorado River. JIM TALLON (LEFT) From bill to tail, the average blue heron is 46 inches long, and it has a wingspan of 72 inches. ROBERT CAMPBELL

Our blitzkrieg bird-watchers remained a mystery until a few months later when I read in the newspaper about the results of that year's Audubon Christmas Bird Count.

Then, last year, Jonathan and I got involved as volunteers with the Tucson Audubon Society, and we had an opportunity to learn more about the count.

This year will be the 95th annual Christmas Bird Count. In 1900 Frank Chapman, editor of the Audubon Society's journal Bird-Lore, put forth a battle cry to Audubon members to create the first Christmas BirdCensus as an alternative to the gruesome Christmas Day hunting competitions on the East Coast in which thousands of animals were killed; whoever shot the most animals won special prizes. Over the years, the Audubon Christmas Bird Count grew until it was countrywide, and the hunting competitions dwindled and died; meanwhile the count has spread into other parts of the continent and beyond.

And just as the birds can be identified by their calls, habits, and plumage, so can the birders be identified by their vocalizations, movements, and clothing.

Case in point: a small Honda containing four people pulls into the parking lot of a midtown fast food outlet at about 9 A.M. one winter day. How do you know they are birders? First the vocalizations: "Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!" one cries (this is a very common birder vocalization). "Look!" "Where?" and "Allright!" also are heard. Then the behavior: a general flurry of movement, usually as a group in similar formation; hands held to face, neck craned back, eyes scanning the trees or sky. And if you haven't identified them as birders yet, their "plumage" gives them away: knit caps, sweaters, overcoats, rubber boots, and expensive binoculars hanging around their necks. (A less obvious identifying feature would be their poor eating habits.) I know these people were birders because I was one of them, sitting in the back of the Honda, and we were cold and starving after having been birding for several hours on the soggy links of Reid Park Golf Course and around the artificial ponds of nearby Reid Park. We were among 32 people making the 1994 Tucson Christmas Bird Count, the day after Christmas, which was gray and drizzly. The reason we were "ooh-ing" and exclaiming was the sighting of two Cooper's hawks across the street on telephone poles. These lovely little forest accipiters have managed to make a niche for themselves in cities, and we were hoping to see one that day. Though I had studied ornithology in college and am a naturalist-writer, this was my first Christmas Bird Count, and I still considered myself somewhat of a beginner compared to the illustrious other members of my party: Greer Warren, coordinator for the Tucson count, employee of the Tucsonbased birding tour company Wings, and outings chairman for the Tucson Audubon Society; Diana Davis, Tucson artist and accomplished birder; and Chris Benesh, also of Tucson, a professional bird-watching guide for the Austin, Texas-based Field Guides, Inc. Our group was counting central Tucson, a circle extending from 32nd Street to Grant Road and from the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks to Swan Road.

Greer, Diana, and I began the day at the Reid Park Golf Course to count waterfowl that overwinter on the lush fairway water hazards. Greer sweet-talked our way past the gatekeeper, and we took off at a furious clip like oowoo-woo-woo-woo.

Around the greens. Ring-necked ducks, 7. Coots, 12. Belted kingfishers, 1 or 2. Yellow-rumped warblers, baker's dozen. Mourning doves (“moe-doe's”), 9. Northern mocking-birds, 1. Ruby-crowned kinglets, 1. White-crowned sparrows, 15. Grackles (“graks”), 2. Then it was back in the car, a quick stop at the park's water-treatment pond (add 4 coots, 9 ring-necked ducks), and over to the artificial lakes in western Reid Park, where Chris joined us. Black-crowned night her-ons, 2. Great blue herons (“GBH”), 1. Belted kingfishers, 2. Orange-crowned warblers, 1.

We lingered there, hoping to glimpse a rare green kingfisher reportedly in the area, but alas not that day. Then it was on to a drive-through restaurant for fuel, more Reid Park, and then Arroyo Chico, one of Tucson's rare remnant desert washes choked with native plants and birds. At one point as we passed an ornamental olive tree, Chris stopped and exclaimed, “I hear a Hutton's vireo!” I was greatly impressed, having heard absolutely nothing. Indeed, a little dull-gray-green bird popped out of the tree and flew off.

Over a steaming hot Mexican-food lunch, Greer explained that our day was pretty posh compared with some of the other groups', such as the ones slogging it out in the mud of the Santa Cruz riverbed or those hiking up rugged Finger Rock Canyon. And regarding the data, she com-mented that “it's not science,” given the broad estimations we made regarding abun-dant species such as doves and ducks, but that the information is useful nonetheless.

As coordinator for Tucson, she will take all the data from her groups, collate it, and send it to the National Audubon Society Field Notes in New York. There it will in turn be collated and published the following Thanksgiving, listing all species and num-bers counted for the country.

After lunch the sky opened up like a garden hose, and most birds took off to unknown places. We saw but a few stal-wart mockingbirds and too-dumb pigeons. Wet, cold, tired and bleary-eyed, I knew it was time to quit when I spied a bird on a telephone pole that first was a hawk, thenbecame a puffin, of all things, and finally turned into a common but oddly colored pigeon and flew away.

Two weeks after the count, Greer com-pleted and filed Tucson's bird count data. In all, our count netted 118 species and 27,847 individual birds (about 10,000 fewer than last year, maybe because of the rain; count participation also was down). Since then I have taken up birding more se-riously and have actually improved to the point where I can decipher ducks and sep-arate sparrows.

Though four years ago in my ignorance I might have made fun of birders, I have come to appreciate the special nature of birds, as have millions of other birders in the U.S. What is it about birds that attracts us, drives us to watch them obsessively?

Early in this century, poet Robinson Jeffers wrote often of birds. In his 1947 poem “Their Beauty Has More Meaning,” he wrote: Yesterday morning enormous the Moon hung low on the ocean, Round and yellow-rose in the glow Of dawn; The night-herons flapping home Wore dawn on their wings.Standing in the middle of a city park, near a concrete pond rather than the ocean, soaking wet and cold, I watched herons fly through the dawn shortly after Christmas. I felt the wildness they brought with them into our frenzied urban lives. I want to remember that connection. So I count birds.