It’s Christmas time, and you know what that means... time for the annual bird count!
Early next week, volunteers from 2,000 communities across the country will set out to count bird species in the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count.
The effort to count and track bird species in the United States goes back 120 years, and clubs on Hilton Head Island and in the Sun City/Okatie area will participate in the count on Dec. 16 and Dec. 17, respectively.
During one of the longest-running wildlife censuses in the world, volunteers will tally all birds seen or heard on one day in a 15-mile-wide circle, according to Audubon.
“The Christmas Bird Count is a great tradition and opportunity for everyone to be a part of 120 years of ongoing community science,” said Geoff LeBaron, Audubon’s Christmas Bird Count director. “Adding your observations to twelve decades of data helps scientists and conservationists discover trends that make our work more impactful. Participating in the Christmas Bird Count is a fun and meaningful way to spend a winter for anyone and everyone.”
This year’s count is significant to volunteers because of recent news that North America has lost one in four birds in the past 50 years, according to a study published in Science magazine in October.
Community observations are included in Audubon’s Christmas Bird Count data tracker, which shows where bird populations have increased and decreased, by species and state.
In 2018, the global Christmas Bird Count included 1,975 counts in the United States, 460 in Canada and 180 in Latin America, the Caribbean, Bermuda and the Pacific Islands, according to Audubon. The count featured two new species: the Little Stint in San Diego and the Great Black Hawk in Portland, Maine.
During last year’s count on Hilton Head Island, 320 participants counted 25,561 birds of 137 different species, according to the Audubon club’s website.
Earlier this month, two endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers were relocated from the Francis Marion National Forest north of Charleston to the Tillman Sandridge Heritage Preserve in Jasper County in hopes that they will breed and repopulate new parts of the state, according to a news release from the S.C. Department of Natural Resources.
If you go
On Dec. 16, the bird count will take place on Hilton Head Island and includes all of Hilton Head, Pinckney and Daufuskie Islands, parts of Bluffton extending to Palmetto Bluff, and Colleton River Plantation and surrounding waterways.
Interested participants can email Susan Murphy at HHICBC@gmail.com to take part in the count.
On Dec. 17, the bird count will take place in the Sun City/ Okatie area, which includes the Belfair, Callawassie, Rose Hill, Hampton Hall, Spring Island, Hampton Lakes and Oldfield neighborhoods.
Interested participants can email Jim Cubie at jimcubie1@gmail.com.
Times for each neighborhood’s count are staggered.
There is no fee to participate, and beginning bird watchers will be paired with experienced bird watchers, according to Audubon.
