Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
IN THE PHOTO at left, participants in Ironwood's Audubon Christmas Bird Count meet at Cold Iron Brewing in Ironwood on Jan. 2 to tally the number of bird species seen on New Year's Day. From left are Steven Holt, Mark Larson, Janelle Carlsgaard, Kevin Glueckert, Ani Lawrence and Alba Lawrence. Not shown are Ezra and Malaka Lawrence.
By BRENDA MOSELEY
Ironwood - In the late 19th Century, the only birds that many people wanted to count were dead ones.
At that time, Christmas shooting contests were known as "side hunts," and all birds were targets. Captains would pick team members and hope for carnage.
The Omaha World Herald reported the number of birds killed by just two of the members in a winning team in its Dec. 31, 1898, issue. Their count included 96 geese, 68 ducks and an abundance of "small fry like jacksnipe, curlews and plovers."
Alarmed by reports like these, ornithologist Frank Church proposed a new way of counting birds at Christmas – an annual census of live ones.
Church also was the editor of Bird-Lore, the publication of the Audubon Societies of America, and he made the proposal within an essay in the magazine's December 1900 issue.
That Christmas, 27 birders helped with the count. Last year, more than 83,000 did.
This year's count was the Audubon's 125th year, and - thanks to the efforts of biologist and birder Alba Lawrence - this region is now officially included in the Audubon bird count.
To be included, a location needs to be within a 15-mile count circle officially registered with Audubon. Count circles are needed to prevent the overcounting of species and to insure historically accurate records for a given area.
Audubon will add new count areas if petitioners can show that an area is important and underrepresented.
Lawrence thought he could do both. Last year, he petitioned Audubon for a new count circle centered in Bessemer. He showed that the area could be a valuable and consistent source of winter bird data. "It's the furthest west in the state and includes both residential areas and unique surrounding environments," he said. "There was just a big hole on the CBC map in our area."
Christmas bird counts must be conducted between Dec. 14 and Jan. 5, and Lawrence set this year's count for Jan. 1. Fifteen birdwatchers participated and did their best to cover their assigned areas in the new count zone.
The group saw 29 species of birds on Jan. 1, including Cooper's Hawk, Bohemian Waxwings, Common Redpolls and Snowy and Barred Owls.
Lawrence forwarded the count totals to Audubon, where the information will become part of the oldest citizen science project in the United States. CBC data is used for many purposes, including the identification of species at risk from habitat loss, climate change and other factors.
