Birders have flocked to this citizen science event for 125 years. Meet Oregonians heeding the call

Bird watchers don’t stop. They’re always on alert, following a flutter in the air, pondering a feather that fell to the ground and talking about a frenzy at backyard feeders. They traverse mountains, deserts, grasslands, marshes and forests with binoculars strapped around their necks, a worn Sibley guide at their side.

But there is one day a year in which tens of thousands of bird enthusiasts go all in, postponing a surgery, skipping a holiday gathering and scouting, sometimes from dawn to dusk, in a large or small part of a specific 15-mile circle. Their mission: to tally the types and numbers of birds they see to contribute to the National Audubon Society’s most powerful community science effort, the Christmas Bird Count.

“CBC” for short.

And Oregon birders are ready. Oregon has about 47 CBC groups that each spend one day counting birds from Dec. 14 to Jan. 5.

The count is a concentration of what people love about birding: gathering useful new information and enjoying fellowship with others fascinated by birds. And like the U.S. Census, the data collected is prized and analyzed, and used to document changes and draw conclusions.

The Christmas Bird Count is the world’s largest and longest-running — 125 years so far — bird census. The database has become one of the most important sources for researchers, conservation biologists and wildlife agencies to track the health of avian populations across the Western Hemisphere.

While some duck, goose and swan populations are exploding, Christmas Bird Count data, collected by volunteers, has helped prove that the numbers of more than half of all U.S. bird species are dwindling, according to a report by the North American Bird Conservation Initiative.

Christmas Bird Count and other consistently compiled data also show that many species are spending the winter much farther north than they did decades ago due to milder temperatures, and for some species, the greater availability of bird feeders.

When combined with other information such as the Breeding Bird Survey, the annual Audubon count provides a picture of how the continent’s bird populations have changed over the last century.

Birds are indicators of environmental conditions — the canaries in the coal mine — and much more. Physicist Albert Einstein wrote in 1949 that studying migratory birds and carrier pigeons could lead to a deeper understanding of physical processes not yet known, and musician Paul McCartney said birdwatching in the countryside removed him from “the normal stream of life.”

For many bird enthusiasts, the count is a winter ritual, cherished time with relatives and close friends who take satisfaction adding to an important scientific project the National Audubon Society launched in 1900 to discourage people from shooting birds for sport.

And environmentally conscious Oregon, with public lands and opportunities to explore nature, is welcoming to birders and people who just can’t help to notice what’s flying around, said Ashland bird expert Pepper Trail.

Trail, a retired ornithologist who worked 23 years at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Forensic Laboratory in Ashland, has been covering the Kelly Slough part of the Medford count circle since 2000.

Before the Savage Rapids Dam on the Rogue River was removed in 2009, he and his friend, the late Mike Uhtoff, would paddle a canoe across the river and into the flooded slough. Trail and Uhtoff’s son, Chris, continued the physically taxing tradition.

On Medford’s Christmas Bird Count day, Trail seems more like an Indiana Jones character than a mild-mannered biologist. He hikes, battles overgrown blackberries — he’s bringing a machete this year — and makes sure he’s in position to record as many as 20,000 robins and starlings flying out of their roost before day break and returning at dusk.

Trail and Chris Uhtoff are also tracking waterfowl in ponds, birds feeding on pyracantha berries and other action on publicly accessed Lower Table Rock and remote land protected by the Nature Conservancy.

“People are devoted to spending a cold winter day counting birds because it’s a great tradition” for personal and scientific reasons, said Trail, 71. He remembers his first official Christmas count with his dad, Paris Trail, in the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge in upstate New York. He was 9.

Participants don’t have to be an expert or have a professional degree to contribute to the Audubon’s international database. People of all ages volunteer to record the birds they see out their home window, called feeder watchers, or tromp through all types of terrain as field observers.

Last year, 72,129 CBC field observers and 11,057 feeder watchers in the U.S., Canada, the Caribbean, Latin America and Pacific Islands tallied close to 41 million birds representing about 2,380 species, according to the National Audubon Society.

Also last year, 43 new circles were established. Each year, the effort and geographic coverage of the bird count increases and yet there are overall declines in the total birds counted, according to Audubon.

“Even small changes like avoiding pesticides and plastics, drinking bird-friendly coffee, planting native plants around our homes, and making our windows bird-safe can have meaningful and significant impacts for our bird populations,” Audubon experts said.

Cold noses and hot cocoa

June O’Connor was a toddler riding in a baby carrier on her dad’s back when she experienced her first Christmas Bird Count. Now, the 6-year-old competes with her sisters — Madelyn, 12, Lily, 10, and Eleanor, 3 — to spot as many birds as she can.

Rory and Emily O’Connor’s family, who live in the tiny city of Hines in eastern Oregon’s High Desert, will join flocks of other kids watching the skies of Burns and Hines on Dec. 13 during the fifth annual Christmas Bird Count for Kids & Families (CBC4Kids) organized through the Harney County Library. The next day is Burn’s official Christmas Bird Count.

Like a scavenger hunt, kids participating in the CBC4Kids are given a map to bird-rich parks and front yards, and pictures of common birds. After fueling up on hot cocoa and chocolate-covered donuts with sprinkles at the library, they venture off with borrowed binoculars and “eagle eyes,” said Emily O’Connor. Hours later, they return to the library to share their bird sighting list, enjoy story time, crafts and a bird book giveaway, and eat pizza.

“The CBC tends to be less thrilling for our girls because you’re supposed to stay in one spot and count the birds you can see,” said O’Connor. “We might only see two chickadees.”

But if the family can walk or drive around, they can practice their skills of estimating the large number of starlings, doves and quails in the area, as well as possibly spotting a rare winter bird like an evening grosbeak.

“It’s always really exciting to the girls if we see something different like a flicker or a hawk,” O’Connor said, “and that leads to yelling and screaming. Our birding trips are not very quiet.”

The girls will most definitely see short-legged California quails with a distinctive feathered topknot that look like something created for a Pixar movie and sound like a squeaky dog toy. At the last count, Burns volunteers reported seeing 4,629 California quails.

Emily O’Connor, who has a degree in ecology, and Rory, who is a rangeland research ecologist for Eastern Oregon Agricultural Research Station, said paying attention to birds makes their daughters more observant of their surroundings, and they feel good learning about wildlife and contributing to a citizen science effort.

Isabelle Fleuraud, Harney County Library’s Youth Services coordinator and a birdwatching hobbyist, said children quickly realize that nature is everywhere.

“You can just look out a window and walk down your street,” said Fleuraud, who started the CBC4Kids five years ago with Teresa Wicks, a biologist with the Bird Alliance of Oregon, and Janelle Wicks, director of Friends of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, the 190,000-acre home to more than 340 species of birds and known as the “Gem of the Pacific Flyway.”

Teresa Wicks said studies show being in a wildlife area multiple times or watching birds in the backyard can enhance children’s mental health and school grades. Kids learn patience, and improve focus abilities while paying attention to details, like a bird’s distinguishing color, markings, size, shape, calls, songs and behaviors.

“They can also grow a sense of stewardship for nature and place, foster an understanding of the connections between birds and habitat, and how changes in weather and climate can change bird communities,” Wicks said.

Learning that birds evolved from small carnivorous dinosaurs and having another outdoor activity in winter also make the Christmas Bird Count and CBC4Kids fun for people of all ages, she said.

Oregon’s bird status

On Christmas Bird Count days, Oregonians look on the coast for loons, puffins and gulls, and scour the sagebrush steppe of eastern Oregon for sage grouses, prairie falcons and golden eagles.

Southern Oregon’s Klamath Basin draws crowds to see bald eagles, rough-legged hawks and hundreds of tundra swans, and Sauvie Island west of Portland is the winter vacation spot for the northernmost sandhill cranes, said bird expert and author Harry Fuller, who lives in Salem.

Oregon’s big claim to fame: Christmas Bird Count reports of a great gray owl, “one of the most elusive species in the Lower 48,” said Fuller, who has participated in Christmas counts across the state. His latest book is “Guide to Birding Harney County.”

In 2010, when Fuller was an Ashland resident, he co-founded that city’s Christmas Bird Count with John Bullock to include spotted owls, Clark’s nutcrackers, mountain bluebirds and other species not found below 2,000 feet.

Dawn Villaescusa of Seven Capes Bird Alliance in Lincoln City sees lots of out-of-towners pitching in at her area’s bird count, a bucket-list experience for serious birders seeking a variety of sea, lake, river, wetland, farm and forest habitats.

“I know people who use their vacation time to travel to as many CBCs as they can and change family gatherings to other days,” said Villaescusa.

She hosts people at her home, which has bird decor and nature art by science illustrator Nora Sherwood and a great egret painted on tiles by Wendy Thompson. Villaescusa also displays a carved Peregrine falcon she purchased at the Coastal Carvers’ Artistry in Wood Show at the Chinook Winds Casino Resort.

Villaescusa hasn’t yet met internationally famous birdwatchers like “The Backyard Bird Chronicles” author Amy Tan or Christian Cooper, who wrote “Better Living Through Birding,” but at her area’s Audubon count this year, she expects to see plenty of visiting Pacific Northwest bird stars.

She quickly names authors Alan Contreras, who wrote “A History of Oregon Ornithology: From Territorial Days to the Rise of Birding,” Dave Irons, who wrote “American Birding Association Field Guide to Birds of Oregon,” and Cameron Cox, who co-wrote “Peterson Reference Guide To Seawatching: Eastern Waterbirds in Flight.”

One of the largest and oldest Christmas counts in the world is organized by Portland’s Bird Alliance of Oregon. With about 350 participants — second only to Canada’s Edmonton with 535 participants and Victoria’s 405 last year — Bird Alliance of Oregon’s Joe Liebezeit spreads volunteers to cover urban to rural habitats.

“We want to make these community science events as inclusive as possible,” said Liebezeit, 56, who started birding as a kid in New Jersey. He organizes the Christmas count for Bird Alliance of Oregon while serving as its assistant director of statewide conservation.

The call for help goes out on the Bird Alliance of Oregon’s Facebook page, with almost 115,000 followers, other social media and emails.

New birders can be helpful recording the data as experienced birders call out what they see. “It’s a great way for new birders to get experience in a fun way,” Liebezeit said.

Most volunteers dedicate a full day; some like Liebezeit start with the pre-dawn owl survey. But volunteers can also go out in the morning when birds are most active and be home for lunch.

Liebezeit said his job is advocating for bird protection and working to get conservation legislation passed, but he still looks forward to the annual count. “It’s important for me to get back in the field,” he said, “because that’s where I first became interested in helping birds and wildlife.”

Since starting in 1926, the Portland group has been collecting data, like all of the Christmas count teams, the old-fashioned way: People record what they saw in a notebook and fill out a form that lists specific names of waterfowl, raptors and falcons, owls, woodpeckers and other birds common in their area.

The list is submitted to a Portland area leader who brings the information to an evening get together. In “round-robin fashion,” said Liebezeit, everyone tells how many birds they saw of more than 100 species spotted that day.

There are always surprises during Portland’s count day like a MacGillivray’s warbler or Western tanager, notable missing regulars like a greater white-fronted goose, and jokesters who report a jet as a “silver-sided gas hog.”

In the end, the compiler creates a spreadsheet that is sent to the National Audubon Society, and the volunteers, muddy and exhausted, head home.

History and reach

1900: Ornithologist Frank Chapman and two dozen other conservationists initiated a Christmas Bird Census of counting birds to replace the “side hunt” competition to see how many wild birds could be shot on Christmas Day.

1918: The Migratory Bird Treaty Act was passed that protects migratory birds and their habitats.

1970s-1980s: Researchers began to recognize the potential value of the Christmas Bird Count as a data set, especially when combined with the results of the Breeding Bird Survey, which started in the mid-1960s.

1997: The interactive website “BirdSource” where people submit their bird sightings was created by the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society. Since 2000, all Christmas Bird Count results have been entered into the online database.

— Janet Eastman covers design and trends. Reach her at 503-294-4072, jeastman@oregonian.com and follow her on X @janeteastman