THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 6, 1995 TAG: 9501040182
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 8 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY MARY REID BARROW, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 193 lines
BOB ANDERSON was tramping through the bone chilling, early morning fog that hovered over a country lane in the southern part of Virginia Beach.
It was 7 a.m. and the darkness was lifting slightly as the rising sun tried to break through the murkiness. The only noise was the sound of water dripping from the trees.
Then suddenly the eerie silence was broken by a rooster crowing to greet the dawn.
``Chickens don't count,'' Anderson said to the other Cape Henry Audubon Society members following him.
On the other hand, all birds, except domestic fowl, really did ``count'' this particular morning last week.
Working with Audubon members Townley Wolfe, a retiree who lives in Virginia Beach, and Thuy Tran, a Norfolk doctor, Anderson was taking part in the National Audubon Society's annual Christmas Bird Count. It was one of several counts taking place across Hampton Roads during the holidays.
The trio's mission at Back Bay was to tally up all the wild birds they saw between Colechester Road and the Sandbridge oceanfront.
Anderson, Wolfe, Tran and close to 40 cohorts from Norfolk's Cape Henry Audubon and other Hampton Roads bird groups had fanned out over the southern part of Virginia Beach to count birds - different species and, where possible, numbers of each species - from the beaches of False Cape State Park to the telephone wires and fences of old Princess Anne County.
Known as the Back Bay Count, it began about 50 years ago as the first of several now conducted annually in the area. But each count, from the Eastern Shore to Cape Hatteras, is basically the same.
A daylong count takes place on the same day in the same specified area every year. Audubon volunteers, binoculars and scopes in hand and clipboards and pencils nearby, count the number and species of birds they see and hear, both as they walk and drive around.
Anderson even tried some of his own sound effects to attract a few birds. Cupping his hand to his mouth, he gave a realistic rendition of the ``hoo, hoo, hoo'' of a great horned owl. He hoped an owl would respond to his call.
No owl answered Anderson's hoot, but a flock of crows responded in anger, ready to take on the big predator owl that Anderson imitated so well. Thus, the first birds on Anderson's count were five crows.
Anderson then uttered the tremulous call of the little screech owl. In return, he got the lilting song of a tiny, nervous Carolina wren. It made the list. Before long a screech owl responded, too.
``You can't be very self-conscious when you do this,'' Anderson noted as he stood alone in the fog.
But Anderson was not the only one who might be accused of acting foolishly. Across North America, from Canada to Mexico, birders were arising before dawn to be part of the Audubon's 95th annual Christmas Bird Count.
These hobbyists enjoy bird watching year-round, but the Christmas counts take on special significance, said Virginia Beach birder Helen Irving.
Counting birds annually on the same day in the same place provides a data base for scientists to analyze for trends in avian communities, Irving explained. Only huge numbers of expert volunteers could compile a data base this massive.
``You have the feeling that you're doing something worthwhile in the long run,'' Irving said. ``I feel like I'm doing something for my community, maybe even my nation.''
The Christmas Bird Count was ultimately responsible for saving the nation from the dangers of the insecticide DDT, probably the most spectacular contribution the count has made to mankind, Irving explained. Counts across the county in the 1960s began to show a serious decline in the population of large fish-eating birds like the osprey and eagle.
The drastic drop alerted scientists to a problem. Subsequent investigations revealed that DDT was causing the birds to lay eggs with thin shells that would break in the nest. They found DDT in the nation's waterways and as a result in the fish the birds were eating.
Scientists concluded the insecticide was toxic to both humans and animals, and the chemical was banned in 1972. Since then ospreys and eagles have rebounded.
Irving, who is retired, was on the first of three counts she would participate in last week. After taking part in the Back Bay Count on Wednesday, she counted birds in the northern half of the city on the Little Creek Count on New Year's Eve and on Monday, Irving went on the Dismal Swamp Count in Suffolk.
Anderson, who does environmental work for the Army at Fort Monroe, took a week's vacation to participate. In addition to Back Bay, Little Creek and Dismal Swamp counts, Anderson also went on the Cape Charles Count on the Eastern Shore on the Tuesday after Christmas and to North Carolina's Outer Banks for the Bodie Island/Pea Island count Thursday, missing only a Hatteras Count on Friday.
A small group of Cape Henry Auduboners also went out Sunday to count birds in Suffolk and on Craney Island in Portsmouth in hopes of reviving that count, which took place in years past, Irving noted.
The Cape Henry Audubon Society has been sponsoring the Back Bay, Little Creek and Bodie Island/Pea Island count for more than two decades. The Dismal Swamp count is only three years old. Tom Gwynn of Norfolk, who works for the City of Suffolk, and Don Schwab of Suffolk, who's with the state's Game and Inland Fisheries Commission, led that effort. Cape Henry Audubon members, however, can be found on most any count within driving distance of Hampton Roads.
Christmas bird counts began nationwide in 1900. Suggested by Bird-Lore magazine, a New Jersey publication, the counts were encouraged as an alternative to a Christmas Day hunting tradition.
Later the event came under the sponsorship of the National Audubon Society. Now almost 50,000 people in more than 1,500 locations across North America participate in the events. Compilations are printed every summer in a booklet published by the Audubon Society and made available for ornithologists and scientists to study.
But the real work begins on those cold mornings when volunteers gather before dawn in desolate country parking lots to map their territories and pay a $5 fee to their ``official compiler'' to participate.
The Back Bay, Little Creek and Bodie/Pea Island counts are compiled by Norfolk native Paul Sykes, one of the top birders in the United States with more than 700 species of birds on his life list. Sykes returns to Hampton Roads from his Watkinsville, Ga., home every holiday to lead the counts.
``This is not a scientific endeavor by any means,'' said Sykes, who was here to conduct his 41st annual tally. ``It's a general count and estimate of every species we can identify by sight or sound. It gives us an idea of what species are where, and it helps us group the birds in various regions of the country.
``Basically, it's so we can continue to monitor trends in migrating bird populations.''
Sykes puts in a week or more on the count, most years.
``I just enjoy seeing the different species of birds, watching their behavior, observing them in different habitats and locations,'' he said. ``It's something you can do everywhere you go.
After a long day that goes from dawn to dark, birders usually meet at the home of another Cape Henry Audubon Society member for supper and the official compilation. This year compilations showed 153 species on the Back Bay Count, 150 on the Bodie/Pea Island count, 147 on the Little Creek count and 98 on the Dismal Swamp Count.
Unusual birds turn up in most of the counts. This area is a meeting ground for Northern and Southern species and out-of-the-ordinary sightings are not unusual, Anderson said.
For example, he saw both a Northern shrike, a striking black, white and gray song bird, out of its Northern range and a great white heron far out of its Southern Florida habitat at Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge on the Outer Banks.
``The mixture of Northern and Southern species in the most interesting thing about this area,'' Anderson said.
Although those two birds might have been the most interesting sight, Anderson's most memorable sight was looking west from Sandbridge across Back Bay to some of Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge's newly acquired property.
He saw a pair of eagles, the pair that nested in that same area last year. The birds were near their old nest and appeared to be rebuilding their aerie to nest again, he said.
This pair of eagles are the first to nest at Back Bay since the 1960s when the eagle population was decimated by DDT.
And Audubon's Christmas bird counts have taken note of it all. MEMO: Staff writer Lane DeGregory contributed to this report.
[This story also ran in The Suffolk Sun on Thursday, January 5, 1995 and
in The Chesapeake Clipper and The Portsmouth Currents on Friday, January
6, 1995.]
ILLUSTRATION: [Cover]
[Color Photo]
KEEPING WATCH OVER THEIR FLOCKS
Staff photos by MORT FRYMAN
Even sea gulls, like these in Sandbridge, get counted in the
National Audubon Society's annual Christmas Bird Count, but counters
are looking for a variety of species.
Townley Wolfe, a retiree who lives in Virginia Beach, was dressed
for the morning's cold as he and others from Norfolk's Cape Henry
Audubon worked Back Bay and Sandbridge.
Staff photo by MORT FRYMAN
Bob Anderson tried sound effects to attract a few birds. He gave a
realistic rendition of the ``hoo, hoo, hoo'' of a great horned owl.
Five crows responded.
Bob Anderson of Norfolk and nearly 40 cohorts from Hampton Roads
bird groups fanned out over the southern part of Virginia Beach,
Little Creek and the Dismal Swamp to count different species and,
where possible, numbers of each species.
The Back Bay, Little Creek and Bodie/Pea Island counts are compiled
by Norfolk native Paul Sykes, one of the top birders in the United
States with more than 700 species of birds on his life list. Sykes
returns from Watkinsville, Ga., each year.
Photo by
LANE DEGREGORY
The Back Bay, Little Creek and Bodie/Pea Island counts are compiled
by Norfolk native Paul Sykes, one of the top birders in the United
States with more than 700 species of birds on his life list. Sykes
returns from Watkinsville, Ga., each year.
KEYWORDS: BIRD COUNTING AUDUBON SOCIETY BIRD CLUBS by CNB