Christmas bird count at mercy of the weather
Keeping track of birds is not like running a classroom. There is no telling when or where they are going to show up or how long they are going to stay.
For more than 100 years, the Audubon Society has been conducting a Christmas bird count to keep track of the whereabouts of the flighty creatures.
On the Friday after Christmas along Fort Myers Beach groups of birdwatchers set out track the different species. It will be weeks before organizer Penny Jarrett has all of the figures tallied but there were some encouraging signs despite a number of factors going against the count.
For one, the early morning weather was cloudy and rainy and followed rains overnight which likely discouraged much bird travel. During the outing spearheaded by Jeffrey Roth, there were vehicles and machinery being operated.
And there was also a dog. A big dog. Some type of retriever mix possibly. Roth wasn’t sure what kind because that is not his forte. He is a bird watcher. But he knows dogs aren’t good for bird watching business. “That’s going to be a challenge,” he said. “They do disrupt the birds, especially large ones. Nice dog. I like dogs but birds don’t like dogs and most wild animals don’t.”
Gail Campbell, of Fort Myers, has been an avid bird watcher for about 20 years. This is her fifth Christmas count. She also expressed worry the dog would have as he walked all the way down the coastline of the beach. Campbell said a big issue is birds ingesting fishing lines which have broken off and left in the water.
The early morning watch started out with more than two dozen fish crows assembled over the roof of Chapel by the Sea. The fish crows are plentiful on the beach.
“They look exactly like regular crows but they have kind of a funny voice,” Roth said. Roth has a background in computers but the Pennsylvania native who lives in Sanibel gives the impression watching birds has been his life’s work. This is only his second year doing the bird count. He said he worked on a count in Ohio last year. He worked on the Sanibel count this year before being called over to Fort Myers Beach to help on their count.
Roth said he has been watching birds for more than six years but has been an avid photographer of animals since the 1980s. With a safari-like outfit, Roth will move quickly towards a group of birds on the beach if something catches his eye.
And Roth has an eagle eye. One moment he spots a red-shouldered hawk high up on the roof of a building near the Wyndham Garden on Estero Boulevard. In the blink of an eye the hawk is gone without a trace. Roth quickly finds it hidden in a tree. He spots it munching on a lizard for breakfast. The hawk is common to the area but “you don’t usually see them at the beach,” Roth said. “I would not want to be their prey.
Roth has sight skills that are rare and they make for an effective bird count. He can tell the birds around here on the move. “We have low tide so we should have a lot of birds looking for food,” he says at 7:30 a.m.
Roth isn’t the only one on this journey. Elaine Swank of Fort Myers is a veteran bird watcher. This was her first time working a count on Fort Myers Beach. As she stood and admired a group of pelicans darting into the water to catch fish, she said “it’s important to find where the birds are and track them.”
Swank and the group uses an eBird app to input and record the data of the different birds and species they are finding and how many. It will all be collected by Cornell University and also tallied by Jarrett.
Identifying the birds can sometimes be difficult, particularly when it comes to separating different species. Leg markings are often key indicators, Campbell said. The group spent a large amount of time figuring out which types of gulls were assembled at a watering hole outside the Outrigger Beach Resort. There were dozens of gulls. Roth believes he spotted four different variations though most were laughing gulls.
Roth said that studying birds is not easy. “It’s not quick. It’s taken me my whole life and I only know a little bit about it.”