Sand and a fine salt spray sliced into the open Jeep, and the driver and three passengers scrootched deeper into their parkas. A voice cried “Onward!” And the Jeep scuffed up Cape Cod’s North Beach. The leader’s black-gloved hand shot up, and the Jeep stopped. He aimed a long-lens camera out to sea as the eyes of his companions followed. One man fumbled with a fowling piece, then dropped it when the leader mumbled something. Another scribbled on a tiny note pad.
These people were birders—a flinty-eyed, cold-tailed breed whose normal habitat covers just about every square mile of land in the U.S. They nest and feed very much as humans do, but at around the turn of the calendar every winter, they roost in icy swamps, deep forests, river and creek shores, arriving there usually in predawn darkness, armed with cameras, binoculars, telescopes, field guides and silence. They are a kind of rara avis whose purpose it is to count birds and species of birds, with the emphasis, of course, on the rara avis.
Noted Specimens. Acknowledged elder statesman of the count is Charles H.
Rogers, 74, curator at Princeton University’s Zoology Museum, who has turned out for every Christmas bird census since the first one in 1900. But the vast majority of birders are not professional ornithologists but eager amateurs, who have found birding a challenging and relaxing hobby. Among them are such noted specimens as retired Air Force General Carl (“Tooey”) Spaatz, Columnist Walter Lippmann, Author Rachel (The Sea Around Us) Carson, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, Alfred Barr, director of collections at Manhattan’s Museumof Modern Art.
On any day of the week, at any time of the year, such dedicated birders journey out to the woods, thickets and swamps with binoculars at the ready. Their aim is simple: to enjoy the pure outdoorsy fun of spotting birds. The rarer the find, the prouder the birder, who rushes to seek out the nearest fellow birdsman to report his triumph. Most of these birders are among the 235,000 members of Audubon societies, which this year sent out about 10,000 people in platoons to take the 1961 bird census in 50 states. Each group covered a specific sector with a 15-mile diameter. It was no lark. In many cases, birders have to photograph rare specimens to get credit for them, and in some instances, extremely rare finds are shot down to prove the sighting. In this fashion, naturalists keep track of the ups and downs among various species in the bird population.
On Cape Cod, birders chalked up two Razor-Billed Auks, six Ring-Necked Ducks, one Barrow’s Golden-Eye, a rare, deep-Arctic male King Eider, two Clapper Rails, a Yellow-Breasted Chat, and an unprecedented 25 Pine Grosbeaks. In Cocoa, Fla., Veteran Birder Allan Cruickshank, one of the nation’s foremost experts, claimed a record 191 species for his group, including the Fulvous Tree-Duck and two Brewer’s Blackbirds.
Juncos & Jaegers. In San Francisco, a seventh-grader named Arthur Wang found a stray Slate-Colored Junco (rarely seen west of the Sierras), while elsewhere in the bay area his colleagues registered the Eastern Phoebe, the Pomarine Jaeger, the Hermit Warbler and the Saw-Whet Owl. From Oahu, Hawaii, a dedicated birder named Grenville Hatch reported sightings by her group of 500 Red-Footed Boobies, 452 Frigate-Birds, 433 Arctic Golden Plovers and one Long-Billed Dowitcher.
Early reports indicated that this year’s totals would top last year’s census of 52 million birds and 506 species. As always, however, there would be some disappointments. Los Angelenos, for example, failed for the third straight year to find a Bald Eagle. And in Hawaii, neither Devotee Grenville Hatch nor any of her fellow birders spied a Nukupuu or a Puaiohi, or an O’u. or even the shy, honey-eating O’o.
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