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Human Flock Fans Out to Count Birds

December 31, 2008 - FREEPORT — To the untrained eye – and ear – there wasn't much going on along Merrill Road on Saturday morning.

But Derek Lovitch's eyes and ears are trained, and he was able to hear and spot scores of birds, from chickadees and sparrows to this year's ubiquitous white-winged crossbills, flitting through the trees. He looked down, too, to find more than a dozen wild turkeys moving along the edge of the woods.

Lovitch, who owns the Wild Bird Center of Yarmouth, which sells bird-feeding and bird-watching supplies, was among the dozens of volunteers scouting back roads of Maine on Saturday as part of the Christmas Bird Count. He's walked parts of Freeport for five of the past six years, helping to document the rise and fall of bird species in the state.

"It's a good excuse to go birding," Lovitch said, happy to be out counting birds even on a gray, raw day in late December.

The bird count is conducted nationally and provides scientists with data to determine how well, or poorly, birds are faring in the midst of development, climate change and even a recession that could cut into the amount of food that humans provide.

"It's a census that gives us a snapshot look at the bird population," said Judy Camuso, a wildlife biologist with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, who will compile much of the information that was gathered Saturday.

The counts are conducted in hundreds of communities during the last half of December. It's been going on nationally for 109 years and for at least 30 years in Maine, Camuso said.

Birders meet at a central spot in a community and then fan out 16 miles in all directions, tallying the birds they see along the way.

Camuso expects to see about 85 or 90 species show up in the reports she gets. In the summer, Maine is host to about 120 species, although the record for the state at any one time is 175.

Most of the counters will see waterfowl, such as Canada geese, Camuso said, along with chickadees and other forest birds. A few might see owls, eagles, hawks or falcons.

Camuso said waterfowl are doing well in the state, but birds of prey, shorebirds and song birds seem to be in decline. Global warming may be behind sightings of more red-bellied woodpeckers and Carolina wrens, birds that typically spend winters in the Southeast but are more prevalent in Maine winter counts in recent years, she said.

Nationwide bird counts are rare. Camuso said there are often surveys of specific species or breeding pairs of birds, and Lovitch noted that there's a backyard bird count in February, but the annual Christmas count is the largest and best known.

Lovitch's observations make it clear that birding involves much more than just being able to identify a bird by its silhouette as it flies overhead or by its song. He noted that the explosion of white-winged crossbills this year is due to a lack of northern ash berries in the mountains. That's sent the birds here in search of food.

Last year, he said, there was a lot of fruit on trees in southern Maine, and that led to an influx of pine grosbeaks.

Lovitch said his territory in the bird count isn't the most popular. There's not a lot of open water, he said, meaning there's not many waterfowl in his count, but he's grown to appreciate it.

He noted that when he and his wife were looking at houses, the one they ended up buying in Pownal was a little more attractive because it was in the same territory as where the Lovitches do the Christmas count. Lovitch also booked a Saturday night flight to Alabama – where he's joining friends to watch his alma mater, Rutgers University, in a bowl game – instead of a daytime flight, so he wouldn't miss the count.

And Lovitch makes the most of the territory he's got by "pishing" – making a "pfsh" sound – to attract birds. He said birds make that kind of sound when they spot a predator, and it usually attracts other birds in a process called "mobbing." The theory, he said, is that they come because a predator that's been spotted isn't as dangerous as one that goes undetected, so other birds want to see what's in the area.

Lovitch and fellow spotters Ed Hess and Doug Suitor generally leapfrog in their counting. One of the three drops off from the other two and drives ahead about a mile or so, parking the car along the road. The driver gets out and starts walking ahead, counting as he goes. When the other two reach the parked car, they get in and drive ahead to pick up the other counter and repeat the process.

Some of the counting is done by simply driving to a spot where birds are known to frequent, he said. For instance, crab apple trees at Pine Tree Academy are known to attract birds, so that's usually a mandatory stop for the counters.

Lovitch said the process is not purely scientific. Some counters can pick up bird calls better, others are particularly good at pishing and some might be able to spot a bird at a distance better. But over time, those biases even out, he said, and the count provides some great insight into the rise and fall of bird species.

"Twenty-five years ago, we would have been real excited to see the tufted titmouse and northern cardinal," species that are routinely spotted now, Lovitch said. "We're seeing those changes and they're more obvious over 109 years of data."

By EDWARD D. MURPHY, Staff Writer, Portland Press Herald, December 28, 2008


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