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Warm weather affects bird count

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Unseasonably warm weather this winter appears to have affected the 117th annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count.

Birdwatchers in Greene County canvased the areas around Clarksville and Ryerson Station State Park to provide the National Audubon Society with a yearly snapshot of the birds that inhabit both the woodlands of the western end of the county and the riverbanks and open fields in the east.

The weather was definitely a factor, according to Ralph K. Bell Bird Club President Marjorie Howard of East View.

“Birds were few and far between,” she said. “Usually if you found a bird, there ended up being three or more species with it, but not this year.”

The group worked in a 15-mile radius around Clarksville Dec. 19 before working Jan. 2 in Ryerson.

Bird watchers turned citizen scientists have been recording the species and numbers of birds to be found in designated areas on designated days in the Northern Hemisphere since 1900. That’s when newly formed Audubon Society member Frank Audubon organized the first Christmas Bird Count, which was the initial scientific census of early-winter bird populations. It broke ranks with the traditional Christmas “Side Hunt” in which hunters competed to kill as many birds and other animals as possible on Christmas Day.

The data is used by Audubon at Cornell University to gauge the impact of weather and human activity on the general health of the planet based on the health of avian populations.

As temperatures climbed into the 60s through December and into January, some birds that usually migrate lingered and birds that normally spend the winter here, like chickadees, cardinals, sparrows and wrens, abandoned backyard feeders in favor of foraging for what nature provides in hidden thickets and arboreal canopies.

“We found feeders but so many of them were empty,” Howard said.

Larry Helgerman of Brooks Bird Club in Wheeling, W.Va., said there was a “fantastic” crop of wild grapes, poison ivy berries and rose hips this year, which the birds actually prefer. His Buffalo Creek circle in Washington County did its count on Dec. 20 and identified 69 species on a day that he remembers as being cold in the morning, but dry.

“This is what Audubon wants with this count; to see how the common birds are doing,” Helgerman said.

The species of birds common to Greene County that were seen during the count was consistent with past years.

But without snow for contrast, tiny birds are more difficult to spot, let alone identify by their even smaller markings. But every bird has its own distinct song to be learned by those who “stop, listen, then look,” Howard said.

The late Ralph K. Bell started the first Audubon Christmas Bird Count circle in Greene County near his Clarksville home in 1958 and began training a generation of bird lovers to hear rather than see what they were seeking in the trees and thickets.

“Ralph was colorblind, so he had to listen and I was amazed at how many birds he could identify,” Howard said. “I started listening to tapes so I could do it too.”

Now these many melodies, along with color photos and detailed descriptions of birds to be found have been made into smartphone apps to help newbie citizen scientists earn their wings.

“You don’t have to be a full-fledged birder to do this,” Helgerman said. “You can ride with someone and be another set of eyes and learn as you go.”

Audubon’s next national event is the Great Backyard Bird Count Feb. 12 to 16. The public is invited to count birds in neighborhoods and at their bird feeders and file the data online at www.gbbc.birdcount.org.

The Ralph K. Bell Bird Club will hold its next public meeting at 6 p.m. April 18 at Bowlby Library in Waynesburg. The program will explain how to register and use www.ebird.org, an online checklist program developed by Cornell lab of Ornithology and Audubon Society so that recreational and professional bird watchers can file bird sightings online and access information about birds.

For more information about the Ralph K. Bell Bird Club and its upcoming watch opportunities, send an email to rkbbirdclub@yahoo.com.

Participants in this year’s Greene County included Ron and Lyn Argent, Jane Bonner, Judy Cholak, Jan Churney, Diane Clark, Terry Dayton, Adolf Deynzer, Worthy Fox, Myra Gibson, Mary Grey, Larry Helgerman, Chase, Marjorie and Michelle Howard, Jo Hoy, Pat Hutcheson, Aidan and Kathy Kern, Marjorie Moffatt, and Bill and Donna Riggle.

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