Augustans continue decades long Christmas tradition – counting birds for science

Lois Stacey joined her first Christmas bird count in 2003, the same year she started birding with a local Audubon group.

"One of the first years I did it we were over at the Brickyard Pond, and there were these white trash bags on the far side of the pond," said Stacey, who is currently president of the local Audubon association and field trip chair. "We were trying to see why there were trash bags over there, and put a scope on it, and all of a sudden the head came up – it was 15 snow geese."

This year, Stacey will be leading a small group at Phinizy Swamp on Dec. 18 to continue the tradition, one of several across the Augusta area. Other groups will count at the Augusta Canal and North Augusta. Afterwards she will tally all the counts and submit them to Audubon, where they will join the results from birders across the country and the world – her contribution to one of the longest running citizen science efforts anywhere.

The Christmas Bird Count started on Christmas Day in 1900 as a conservation-minded alternative to a Christmas hunt. Augusta's count has been going since the 1950s; Aiken started one not long after.

Each count takes place within 24 hours in a 15-mile-radius circle. The circle, once established, never changes and volunteers divide it up and count every single bird they can see. They also record participation, locations, weather and more, allowing scientists to control for differences year to year and find trends in bird populations.

"There's over 100 years worth of data on some of these circles, so that gives you a very good data set," Stacey said. "A lot of scientists use this database to review long-term changes in different species, or this used to be all rural area and now it's built up, what has happened to the bird population, all kinds of questions can be answered using that Audubon database."

Ruth Mead, education director for Phinizy Center for Water Sciences, took a class on field ornithology around 1991 and did her first Christmas Bird Count in 1992. Now she teaches a class on field ornithology at Phinizy and invites her students to join in the local count.

More: Did you know? Phinizy Swamp is a giant water filter for Augusta

"Some of our migratory birds that are in say, Costa Rica or Panama now will get counted in those Christmas Bird Counts," Mead said. "(It) kind of gives us a glimpse, lets us know that birds are changing ranges, or if they are, or if they're in decline."

Audubon provides summaries of the state and national information, down to individual counts of noteworthy species. In Georgia, last year's count found that warmer fall weather means some northern species are wintering farther north and some species here that would normally migrate are staying longer.

"Our waterfowl numbers have gone done," Stacey said. "I mean, just going out every week, every year in the winter, we see that we're seeing fewer and fewer ducks. That's probably shown by the bird count. The reason for that, of course, is because the water isn't freezing north of here so the birds don't have to come so far."

Mead said she just goes for the fun of spotting birds and lets other people handle the data.

"We want to see a lot of ducks, we want to see a lot of birds of prey, it would be great to have some of the shore birds," she said. "As long as the birds are out and we're counting birds, it doesn't matter who they are."

Stacey started birding after noticing more species she could not identify while working in her backyard. Now in a non-pandemic year she travels as far away as Macon and the coast, doing about seven bird counts a year.

"I just like to be outside counting birds, and spending time with friends," she said. "Even though we're pretty thorough when we're casually birding, it is something of a social situation, so we're usually talking our heads off. But you are so much more thorough in covering your territory in a Christmas Bird Count that you do find things that you might normally miss."

New birders are paired up with more experienced birders, so it is a chance for them to learn. This year the count in Augusta is not accepting new volunteers because of COVID restrictions from Audubon, but Stacey hopes they can return to normal soon.

"Eyes are welcome, you don't have to be a great bird watcher, you've got to be able to spot them and say, 'hey, what's that?'" she said. "Four eyes are better than two eyes and six eyes are better than four eyes. So in the future we'd love to have people join us, just not during the pandemic."

To learn more about the counts visit the Augusta-Aiken Audubon Society Facebook or see a list of Christmas Bird Counts at the Georgia Ornithology Society.

This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Audubon Christmas Bird Count continues citizen science in Augusta