Christmas Bird Counts always reveal something new
Covid-19 made the 2020 Tulsa Count a little different, but the 85-year tradition continues
Just shy of reaching Mack Taylor Park in Sperry, where the road takes a sweeping 90-degree curl to the west and no one knows if the road is North Peoria Ave., Highway 11 or East 98th Street North (because it’s labeled as all three) I hit the brakes, pulled off the blacktop and shouted at the only Covid-allowed passenger in my Christmas red Nissan.
“Hey Siri! Call Jeff Cox.”
“Hey! Siri! ... Hey Siri!”
“Call! Jeff! Cox!”
Yep, first bird out of the box the morning of the 2020 Tulsa Audubon Society Christmas Bird Count and I needed to go directly to the top, to the coordinator himself, who last weekend broke a personal 25-year streak of covering a portion of the “CBC Circle” in the Sperry area because he was awaiting results of a Covid-19 test due to possible exposure.
I have joined Cox, Bill Carrell and Christine Otto in semi-reliable annual fashion for at least a part of the CBC day since I first joined them to write a story about the local count several years ago and learned about important birding puns like “duck!” and expert ornithological phrases like “friggin golden eagle!”
Exclamation points are important in birding, so obviously I had to return for more excitement with this crew.
Seriously, it’s an incredible, international effort and 2020 marks the 121st year for the National Audubon Society. According to the National organization 137 groups have already completed their counts, with 1,275,481 birds counted. Many more are to come, including more in Oklahoma.
Like most things in 2020, things ended up being just a little bit off this year for the Tulsa club. The average number of species documented over the 85 years of the count is 107 and this year 34 participants documented 104 species, according to Cox.
The crew documented one unusual species for the area, a Say’s phoebe, which typically is a western Oklahoma bird.
The team also spotted a spotted sandpiper and spotted more least sandpipers than usual; a result that doesn’t look right grammatically but is accurate nonetheless.
What was really different was how the count was conducted—mostly with individual efforts.
Instead of riding in a car with Cox and company I was on my own for the early morning and quickly discovered that years of riding around in the back seat of Cox’s vehicle had taught me nothing about the usual route that we take—other than we always start the morning at the park.
My early problem was that I spied a belted kingfisher and nine eastern bluebirds on the power lines between 91st and 96th streets and it hit me that I wasn’t quite sure if I was actually in our designated count zone before I reached the park.
Every year since 1935 Tulsa Audubon members have divided up a 15-mile diameter circle north of Tulsa that includes areas from Mohawk Park to Skiatook to Collinsville to document the number of birds and bird species inhabiting the area. A relative level of consistency is important to the citizen-scientist aspect of the count, so it was important to know if I could count these birds in my tally or not.
Did our team’s area extend to 91st Street or was I technically in someone else’s zone?
I was messing with 85 years of tradition here so, iPhone and eBird app at the ready I shouted out to my notoriously hard-of-hearing digital passenger to consult with Cox via Bluetooth.
“Yes, count it,” was the word.
I was pretty proud of myself. We’ve been well into the day at times and not seen a kingfisher. It’s not an uncommon species but it’s one of those you can easily miss without the right timing. I was glad to mark it off early. Bluebirds are not uncommon either, but to check off nine right off the bat made for a nice start.
This year I also got to meet a very pleasant Sperry Police officer as I counted more than 80 American robins in the park shortly after I spoke with Cox. The officer just stopped to make sure everything was OK and we talked a little bit about birding.
He said he grew up in the area and had never really taken notice of the birds and I told him how much fun it is once you learn about them, how you start to notice things you hadn’t seen before and that it seems there always is something new to learn.
I refrained from telling him about how a birder drives with one eye on the trees, one on their eBird app, one on the road and the other on the rear-view mirror with both hands firmly on the wheel but with one on your binoculars. I simply told him I normally would drive into the park to stop the car and count but I was also taking photos that morning and needed the sun at my back.
Anyway I was perfectly safe, well off the road, and he said as long as I wasn’t having mechanical issues all was well.
Otto, Carrell and I did meet at a landowner’s property we normally walk and and walked in socially distanced fashion outdoors for a good portion of the day. We counted purple finches, something I always like to see because I struggle to tell the difference between purple finches and house finches. We also added a couple of spotted towhees and a bald eagle to the list.
Otto and I also teamed up to count a couple of song sparrows, which was a highlight because we usually rely on Cox and Carrell for those somewhat tricky sparrow IDs. Two amateurs were good as one expert in that instance, we agreed.
Otto, who typically is our checklist master, keeper of the clipboard, did come up with a new birding phrase this year. She kept asking “what’s that!?” not because she didn’t know the birds but because we were keeping our distance and Carrell is somewhat soft-spoken.
I’m putting that one right up there with “duck!”
Yep, learn something new every time.
Want to join in a Christmas Bird Count next weekend?
Another chance to participate in a Christmas Bird Count effort is coming up Saturday (Jan. 2) at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve north of Pawhuska.
This is a count that promises much more to see than just the birds in a beautiful winter setting.
Don Wolfe. He can be reached at 918-397-4885 or dwolfe@suttoncenter.org.