About a dozen towns around the state will be counting birds this weekend. It’s part of the Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count.
The annual count has helped tally bird species across the country for over a century.
“There used to be a tradition of people going out and trying to shoot as many birds as they could for the Christmas season,” said Grant Frost with the Cheyenne chapter. “So it was decided to try and change that by having them just count the birds.”
The count occurs on a single day chosen by local chapters between Dec. 14 and Jan. 5. Organizers choose a center point, then send volunteers to watch for birds within a 7.5 mile radius.
“ There's a rich history in these Christmas bird counts, and we've been doing it here for about, I think it's about 40, 50 years now,” Frost said. “It's a way to contribute to long-term knowledge of what's going on in our world and in our environment. And then it's also just a great way to meet a bunch of great people, too.”
In Cheyenne, the center point is the Capitol building. Frost said small groups will be sent to hot spots where birds are known to frequent. Once those areas are counted for different species and the number of each species seen, the groups can wander anywhere within the radius.
“ The largest number of birds we'll have almost every year will be Canada geese and a close relative called cackling geese. There could be up to a couple of thousand of those in the area, that seven and a half mile radius,” he said. “ We'll get usually, surprisingly, about 50 species or so during the day. Sometimes we'll get some surprises. Like last year, we had four trumpeter swans that were hanging out at the Cheyenne Country Club. You never know what's gonna show up.”
Frost said the counts can help show trends in where birds are spending time and even reveal where invasive species have moved in.
“About 20, 30 years ago, the Christmas bird counts were catching an invasive bird called the Eurasian collared dove. It was a pet people released, probably in the Florida area or something like that. And they've pretty much spread across the country by this point. Things like that can be detected by this kind of account, also.”
Frost himself is hoping to see a Bohemian waxwing, a smallish gray bird with a riot of yellow and red on its wingtips.
“They're so irregular as to where they show up. Sometimes there'll be, you know, [up to] a thousand of them in a spot, and sometimes it'll be years between them coming back.”
Cheyenne’s count is scheduled for Saturday, as are events in Green River, Lander, Cody, Sheridan, Casper, Albany County and Jackson Hole. A map, with more information about meetup locations and times, and who to contact to sign up, is available on Audubon’s website.
