Volunteer birder Bruce Smithson and Audubon North Carolina’s Katie Bullard scan the Lea-Hutaff marshes for avian treasures.
On Sunday, December 18, an intrepid group of birders, divided into half a dozen parties, set out to locate, identify, and count all the birds that they could find within the Holly Shelter-Lea Island Christmas Bird Count circle (NCHL). The 15 mile wide NCHL circle, centered near Hampstead, NC, reaches from the Mason Inlet Waterbird Management Area at the north end of Wrightsville Beach to the south end of Topsail Island, picking up Figure Eight Island and the Lea-Hutaff Island Important Bird Area (IBA). The NCHL circle extends inland to pick up the southeastern portion of Holly Shelter Game Land, also an IBA, where Red-cockaded Woodpeckers and other longleaf pine birds may be found.
Birders Melinda and Bruce Jones scan a patch of young loblolly pines at Poplar Grove Plantation’s Abbey Nature Trail.
As compiler for this circle, I was able to stay in touch and connect with some of the searchers throughout the day, allowing me to get in quite a bit of bird-watching myself, beginning at 5am in search of a Screech Owl in the long leaf forest near my home, and ending at dusk with a search for Bachman’s Sparrow nearby; sort of a full circle kind of thing. Failed on both fronts, but in the between hours, I picked up a Loggerhead Shrike; a near-rare species and one we did not get last year.
All told, I picked up over 30 species while I drove from site to site, partly for logistical tasks, and walked through woods, fallow fields, long leaf pine ridges, and neighborhoods. Total for all participants: 101 species and counting (party counts are still coming-in); fewer than found in 2010, but we picked-up some new species this year. While we missed some we got in 2010, it was not for lack of trying, as is the birder’s way.
The stalwart Lea-Hutaff boat party picked up a Glaucous Gull, along with a Purple Sandpiper; both species new to this count circle.
The CBC is the world’s longest-running volunteer science effort, with over a century of data for researchers to draw from, and those researchers, with help from our band of birders, now have two years of Holly Shelter-Lea Island’s circle data to include.
People familiar with the CBC may know that this is not simply a recreational time to look for birds. This is a truly scientific endeavor designed to collect information about what and how many birds are in and around North America, and where they are spending time in early winter; the Great Backyard Bird Count in February offers volunteers another scientific opportunity to participate in a late winter bird census.
My thanks to the NCHL team for their tireless and important effort to add information to this Christmas Bird Count circle. From accounts I have heard, a fine time was had by all, and that makes this volunteer science effort as good as it gets.
-- Andy Wood
