These Minnesotans with binoculars aren’t casing your house. They’re just doing the Christmas Bird Count.
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If you have a bird feeder or fruit tree in your yard and notice someone peering at your house through binoculars over the Christmas holiday, odds are they aren't the Wet Bandits from the movie “Home Alone.” They’re birders.
"You don't want to be a birder accused of stalking,” said Detroit Lakes birder Bill Henke.
“We do have signs that we can have in our windows that say Christmas Bird Count, so that we can hold that up if people look at us suspiciously,” said his wife, Nancy Henke.
She’s the compiler for the Detroit Lakes group, which has been part of the Christmas Bird Count since 1990.
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The Henkes and other volunteers keep track of the total number of birds they see in a seven-day period, as well as the number of species.
But many members just participate on a single day, which is called the Christmas Bird Count day. And for the Henkes, it’s a day when they try to break their previous years’ single-day record for identifying different bird species.
"Our record number of birds is 48 and that was a few years ago, 48 species,” Nancy said. “So we're trying to always beat the record."
Crashing bird populations
Steve Weston, the Christmas Bird Count coordinator for the entire state, said because of how long the Christmas Bird Count has been going on, it’s an invaluable resource for scientists to use in their research.
"It's great historical information that they can look at,” Weston said. “They can see the changes in bird ranges. Some birds are retreating out of the state. We know that, everybody sees that, other birds, their population is crashing."
And populations aren’t just crashing in the state. North American bird populations are plummeting all over for a number of reasons including loss of habitat, climate change and other factors.
“We have won the war against insects. We are so good at driving down the number of insects that our crops are doing so much better these days,” Weston said. “But while that is happening, the fauna, the animals, including birds that eat the insects, their population is dropping by factors of 10, 20. There are billions of birds less now in the U.S. than there were 50 years ago.”
Soaring interest from birders
On the bright side, Christmas Bird Counts have been growing in popularity, giving researchers more tools to work with. And if knowledge equals power that’s a good place to start.
“It's increasing across the United States,” Weston said. “It's increasing in Minnesota, we have more counts today with more people.”
In Minnesota, 90 different Christmas Bird Counts are being held this holiday season alone. Weston said it’s easy for volunteers to add new areas, too. But the first step is having someone want to do it.
“Then we set up a circle that's 15 miles in diameter. And they go out and recruit people,” he said. “They might all meet in their living room and figure out where they want to go, or they might meet over the internet and decide, ‘Oh, you take this area, I'll take this area. And then they go out.’”
Once all the counts have concluded it is Weston’s job to look at the results and summarize the information. He also vets them for accuracy in case anything odd sticks out, like a rare bird being counted that didn’t have any supporting documentation with it, such as a photograph.
Follow the rules
There are all sorts of rules for participating in the Christmas Bird Count, like not going outside a designated area or not reporting a species you’re not sure about.
Nancy Henke said there’s an honors system, and sometimes there are grey areas.
"One year, we went scouting, and we found a grouse on the corner. We went back on count day, and in the exact same spot there was a dead grouse laying in the road,” she said. “So we had an ethical dilemma on how warm the grouse could be if we could still count it, and we did not, but it was warm."
Not long after telling that story Nancy had her ethical resolve tested while retreading an area she and her husband had previously driven through. She started counting some rock pigeons, but Bill pointed out she had already counted them earlier.
“I think you’re doing a recount,” Bill said.
“Oh, come on!” Nancy fired back.
“Remember now, you were talking about the ethics of birding,” Bill said.
After a laugh Nancy finally gave in, telling Bill, “You’re no fun.”
During a short lunch break at a local bar and grill the youngest member of the Detroit Lakes group, Heidi Henricks, who came with her mother, compared birding to a popular augmented reality mobile game, where the object is to find and capture virtual creatures in the real world using a smartphone’s GPS and camera.
“A lot of people my age ask me why I like to go birding with my family. And I always tell them that it's kind of like Pokémon, you want to catch them all, and anyone can do it. It's free,” she said with a laugh. “It’s all about seeing as many as you can. The action of completing the collection.”
The Detroit Lakes birders didn’t break their single-day record falling just short at 43 species identified. But they’ll be back at it again next year.
