Birders battle cold, enjoy holiday outing
BY BARBARA WILLIAMS GATEHOUSE NEWS SERVICE

We get up before dawn on the appointed day, bundle up, gulp a cup of coffee and head out into whatever weather awaits us. We are searching for every bird, common or rare, that we can find.

We may spend all day outdoors listening, watching and counting in our assigned territory. Some years it is so cold that our pens freeze. Or, it might be raining and muddy. If it's sunny, we squint a lot.

We always get tired, dirty and hungry. But it's a team effort, and it always pays off. We have a potluck supper afterward so we can compare notes, tell tall stories and tally the birds for the day.

At Christmastime every year since 1900, the National Audubon Society has organized volunteers across North America to census wild birds. Rockford birdwatchers joined the Christmas Bird Count effort in 1947 with a survey area encompassing Rockford and the countryside northwest of town. In 1991, we created a second survey area in the Kishwaukee valley south of Rockford. This year, about 40 volunteer birders will roam the Rockford survey area on Dec. 15 and the Kishwaukee area Dec. 29.

It turns out our efforts are the best holiday gift we could give the birds. The information collected is added to data from more than 50,000 observers all over the continent. It becomes part of the longestrunning database in ornithology and provides a detailed picture of trends in early-winter bird populations.

Information is the best tool we can provide the government, private land managers and wildlife biologists. Studies of the data combined with the results of spring and summer surveys show many of our common and widespread birds' populations are in steep decline.

Birds such as Eastern Meadowlark, Northern Pintail, Horned Lark, Northern Bobwhite, Ruffed Grouse, Evening Grosbeak, Field Sparrow, Snow Bunting, Greater Scaup, Whip-poor-will and Lark Sparrow have declined by more than 50 percent in the past 40 years. Birds really are our "canaries in the coal mine." Their population declines mean all is not well in the environment.

You can see the results of the Christmas Bird Counts and learn lots more about birds and how you can help them at audubon.org. And, for the holidays, give them an extra scoop of bird seed or, maybe, a chunk of suet.