By James Lomuscio
Cardinals brighten up gray winter days. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Townsend P. Dickinson
While birders do not expect to find any calling birds or French Hens, compilers for the 64th Annual Westport Christmas Bird Count (CBC)—which runs from midnight tonight to midnight Sunday—may spy “geese a laying,” and even an occasional partridge.
But a partridge would be rare, says Mardi Dickinson, who with her husband Townsend Dickinson, will captain one of the 10 teams comprising 45 volunteers recording species and bird numbers over the 24-hour period.
A good number of birds spotted will be bluebirds, cardinals, titmice, and chickadees, she said. Some volunteers will work shifts of several hours, while diehard birders will go the full stretch. Night owl birders will record exactly that, owls.
“The purpose is to count the birds for statistical purposes, for science,” says Dickinson. “If it weren’t for these counts, nobody would know how many birds there are at this time of the year. All of it goes into a national database.”
Last year, local volunteers tallied 13,294 birds and 103 species, Dickinson said. This year’s count, puns aside, is still up in the air.
Part of a 111-year-old nationwide count and the longest running census in the country, the event is sponsored by the National Audubon Society. The Westport CBC dates back to when the now disbanded Saugatuck Audubon Society was active.
Today, the count covers nine towns and 167 square miles, she said, in Westport, Wilton, eastern New Canaan, Fairfield, Easton, and southern Redding.
Armed with binoculars, high-end scopes, bird books, notebooks, and cellphones for texting or tweeting data—not to mention warm food and beverages—the volunteers are expected to locate, identify, and count all birds found within a 15-mile diameter circle, its center at Westport’s Twin Bridges on Route 57.
Participants in the Westport CBC will enter data that will show which species are thriving, which are disappearing, and which have been blown off their migratory courses, Dickinson says.
Locally, bird watchers will prowl areas such as Compo Beach, Burial Hill Beach, Sherwood Island State Park. Longshore Park, and Winslow Park, she said.
“We don’t go through private property unless we’re invited,” she said.
Whatever happened to flying south in the winter?
“They do, but they’re still migrating,” Dickinson said, “and some stay around all winter, like bluebirds, cardinals, titmice, and chickadees.”
Occasionally there are surprises, she said, such as the fork-tailed flycatcher, indigenous to Mexico, that blew off course this past fall and landed here. A white-tailed kite, found in the South and the West, also showed up unexpectedly.
Dickinson explained that there are three main corridors birds travel: California, Mid-West, and the East Coast.
She noted that the numbers tallied each year fluctuate and without any particular patterns.
“We’ve had anything from 20,000 to 10,000,” she said, “and three years ago only 91 species were found.”
Those irregularities, she stressed, have nothing to do with the efforts of the volunteers, all of whom she described as experienced birders.
“You see what you see, and you’re going by honesty and integrity,” she said.
She said the volunteers work tirelessly not to replicate their numbers, counting the same bird twice. For example, she said she and her husband will be counting birds on a Norwalk Island, coordinating with a counter based in Norwalk Harbor.
“We try to be as careful as we can so we do not overlap the numbers,” she said.
She said that he group is looking for more volunteers.
“We encourage people to come aboard,” she said. “Generally experienced birders are paired with those who have less experience. Most observers start looking for birds at sunrise, but some go out several hours earlier searching for owls and rails.
“Some make a daylong affair, others participants for just two or three hours,” she added. “Field activity tends to wind down at sundown.”
Those interested can contact the Dickinsons at 203-846-0369 or write .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
