Keep Your Eye On The Birdie! Bristol Birders Make Christmas Count

BRISTOL, Tenn. – It’s a Christmas tradition for dozens of Tri-Cities folks. A handful of them gathered in Bristol during a holiday weekend afternoon to count the birds that populate our region.

“We’re not counting everything [individually], we sort of divide and conquer,” said Andy Jones, one of five who participated in the Bristol count Dec. 28. “Some of it’s just looking at local populations.”

Across the nation at the end of every year, groups of bird watchers, scientists and enthusiasts siphon off in small groups for daylong outdoor jaunts to check out their area’s local birds. It’s called the Christmas bird count, and its primary purpose is to estimate the number of birds and species wintering near home. When the sun sets, selected group members compile their data and enter it into a giant database maintained by the Audubon Society. The end result: A comprehensive look at year-to-year bird trends and their shifting nature. And, the reports are available on the society’s Web site, http://www.audubon.org/bird/cbc.

All five of the birders out on this Sunday are members of the Bristol Bird Club. Five other groups were also out that day, trekking through various portions of a 16 square mile region assigned to the club, an area from just outside Abingdon, Va., to Holston Lake and beyond. They were participating in the 109th Christmas count.

Jones, 31, is an ornithologist who grew up in Kingsport, Tenn., and comes home for the holidays each year. He works at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History in Cleveland, Ohio, and said his small group of five had seen 52 different species of birds by 4:30 p.m. He estimated that a combined total of about 80 species would likely be observed by the six different groups participating that Sunday.

Wallace Coffey, an officer in the club, said birding is growing in popularity across the United States.

In the early 90s, there were a few dozen bird festivals held throughout the country, but by 2004, there were 200, according to a recent report from the U.S. Forest Service.

That report also stated that “The Sibley Guide to Birds,” released in 2000, was the best-selling bird book of all time.

And a 2006 report on “Wildlife Watching in the United States,” from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, states that wildlife watchers – not limited to solely to birdwatching – generated $123 billion that year, which is on par with revenues generated from all spectator sports, including football, baseball and NASCAR; amusement parks and arcades; nonhotel casinos; bowling centers; and skiing facilities – combined.

The youngest birder participating in the Bristol Christmas count was 16; the oldest was 68. There was a high school student, a college biology major, a fifth-grade school teacher, a retired newspaperman – and the ornithologist.

“We start at 7:30 a.m. and travel through different neighborhoods and different habitats at different points throughout the day,” Jones said.

Coffey, who has participated in the Bristol count for 50 years, said they can’t get precise numbers, but the count resembles, “one, two, three,” and so on, to, “10, 20, 30, 100, 200.”

Birders participate in the Christmas count from coast to coast anytime from mid-December to early-January, when they hand their information over the Audubon Society.

Michelle Sparks is a new birder, and this was the second year she’s participated in the annual tradition. As a science teacher at an Indian Springs Elementary School, Sparks said she loves everything about her new hobby.

“I’m just learning,” she said. “Just to be able to identify birds is a thrill. ... I make sure I spend at least one half hour outside every day.”

Over the past decade or so, technology has greatly improved the hobby for many of the dedicated. Sparks remembered a favorite moment when she saw an online posting that a rare bird, a merlin, had been spotted in a cemetery in Kingsport.

The next day, Sparks said, she went to the exact location where it had been reported, “and there it was, on that branch, on that tree.”

“It was kind of spiritual for me, so unique to be standing out there all alone in the cemetery and seeing the same bird I’d read about on the Internet the day before,” she said.

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