This bird counting began in 1900 when ornithologist Frank Chapman invented the bird count to alert people to the stupidity of an annual Christmas bird and small animal hunt. Bird counts are supposed to take in about 177 square miles (within 15-mile diameter) in one day of counting. People are supposed to count everything feathered that hunkers, huddles, hops, flies, dives, paddles, waddles, soars, swoops and skates. Yes, I mean skates. The ducks that land on the ice at Lily Lake when it is frozen skate in on the ice. This year it won't be frozen, though.
Many of you will be lucky because you live where it is really warm, perhaps even the Caribbean, Central America, South America, Hawaii and who knows where else. Heck, with 1700 counts, some of you must be warm. Some day I'm going to do my count in Bali.
If you miss the Christmas Bird Count, wait until February 18-21 and take part in the Great Backyard Bird Count. For this one you can pull up your lounge chair, hoist a cup of hot cider or cocoa, munch some nibbles and watch your feeders from your window. The National Audubon Society and the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology sponsor this count. This ought to be an important count because it will be the first of the new millennium, which means many years from now when people report on count statistics, they'll refer to this first count as the baseline.
I'm not sure I understand this February count real well. Unless your bird feeder and window are aligned on a flyway, you won't spot many birds of prey and without a big pond you won't see any water birds. Check out last year's (1999) Great Backyard Bird Count at our own
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