Christmas Bird Count this weekend

MAT-SU -- For Mat-Su birders, the holiday season brings a different kind of joy -- the joy of counting birds.

The Mat-Su Birders wild bird club is once again calling for volunteers for what has become an annual winter tradition, the Christmas Bird Count. This year's event is slated for Dec. 15.

The bird count is open to birders of all skill levels. Mat-Su Birders are offering a planning meeting, where people can get more information and directions, at the Palmer Public Library meeting room at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 11. People may also contact Bob Winckler at 376-8594 or by e-mail at winckler@mtaonline.net.

Last year, nearly 2,000 counts were organized in all 50 states, Canada, and around the world. Each individual group completes a census of birds found during a 24-hour period in a designated circle of 15 miles in diameter -- about 177 square miles.

For more than a century the Christmas Bird Count has provided information for the longest running volunteer-based bird census, spanning three human generations, Geoff LeBaron, director of the national program, said in a press release.

The tradition came to the Valley in 1979, according to local organizers. Bob Estelle acted as the compiler for the first local count and set the center of the Valley's Count Circle on Four Corners, at the junction of Trunk Road and the Palmer-Wasilla Highway, primarily to ensure that the circle encompassed varied types of terrain and some open water.

Birders not only count birds in the field but many participants help in the effort by counting birds at their home feeders. Volunteers don't have to be expert birders to participate, according to organizers. An interest in wild birds is all that is needed. Every pair of eyes helps, and people new to the Valley and inexperienced counters will be teamed with experienced birders.

The Christmas Bird Count began in 1900 when conservationists, led by ornithologist Frank Chapman, decided to organize an alternative to popular holiday "side hunts," in which hunters tried to kill as many birds and mammals they could. Instead of this hunt, Chapman proposed to identify, count and record the birds they saw.

In addition to becoming a social, sporting and competitive event during the next 100 years, the Christmas Bird Count uncovers important scientific information about the winter distribution of various bird species. The data, according to organizers, have become a crucial part of the U.S. government's natural history monitoring database. Count results from 1900 to the present are available at the Audubon's Web site at www.audubon.org/bird/cbc.