Christmas Bird Count

Today a sibling and I went on our second annual Christmas Bird Count from the Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge.  This is an annual citizen science event that has taken place every year since Christmas, 1900. For the first five years the practice was to shoot as many birds as possible. Since 1905 the practice has been to look; not shoot.  A 15 mile diameter circle is drawn from a starting point.  We were assigned the south east slice of the pie.  Our bird party consisted of my sibling, myself, and our former bird teacher. We drove around in a big, old Buick looking for birds.  I wasn't sure how much outdoor walking we would be doing.  I overdressed.  I had so many layers on I wasn't a bit cold.  My main problem was bending my arms.  I really had to struggle to bring my binoculars to my face because all the layers braced my arms to stay straight.  We did very little walking so I really didn't need to wear all those clothes.  It's hard to take layers off when you're buckled into your seat.  We drove around for at least 15 minutes before we saw any birds at all.  We started with a 7:30 meeting to discuss details and assign territories.  By 8:30 we were on the road.  Our first bird was a blue jay. And then we saw 300 more birds for a total of 18 species.  Here they are in order of frequency:  Bald eagle - 1, House finch - 1, Pileated woodpecker - 1, Red tailed hawk - 2, Hairy woodpecker - 2, American Tree sparrow - 3, White breasted nuthatch - 4, Cardinal - 4, Red bellied woodpecker - 6, Trumpeter swans - 6, Downy woodpecker - 12, Junco - 12, Pheasant - 15, Crow - 18, Goldfinch - 18, Blue jay - 52, Turkey - 70, Black capped chickadee - 81.  We saw the turkeys near the end of our excursion so, pound for pound, that added a lot to our total.  I think the most exciting part was when we crossed Battle brook near Elk Lake. The water was open on the brook by the dam.  As the Buick crossed the bridge, I saw some white hunks of snow in the water.  But wait, they weren't white hunks of snow. They had necks!  Those trumpeter swans really got my heart pounding.  There were two adults and four cygnets.  The pheasants were fun too.  We were passing a field with gravel hills in the distance and a small gravel hill near the road.  My sibling said she saw a bird on the hill.  She got out of the car.  We had our binoculars set on the gravel hills in the distance. As she moved toward the near hill, a flock of pheasants took off flying.  As we counted the pheasants, blue and white lights flashed behind us. The sheriff asked what we were doing.  He had a stern look on his young face.  When we said we were counting pheasants for the Christmas bird count and he saw the binoculars, he relaxed and told us he usually sees pheasants or turkeys in this area.  Our pie slice reached down to the outskirts of Elk River.  I knew a master naturalist in the area.  I suggested we go there because I remembered he had bird feeders.  Sure enough, he did have bird feeders and we added another dozen birds to our total.  Heading back toward Zimmerman, we came upon a street named Fresno.  We decided to take that street just because we hadn't been on it yet.  We found a house with some bird feeders that had feed in them. Lots of houses have empty bird feeders.  This house, besides the full bird feeders, had an unusual fence.  If my photo turns out I will try to post a picture of the most unusual fence I have ever seen.  The fence was chain link about four feet tall.  I know that does not sound unusual but lining the chain link was a line of bicycles of all colors. We saw at least 100 bicycles in a line, all facing forward toward Zimmerman.  I hope the photo turns out.  We finished up about 1 o'clock and turned in our totals.  I look forward to doing it again next year.