Kev's Christmas Bird Count: Day One 'highlights' (and a bit more background)

Day One of Kev's Christmas Bird Count!
A Woo and a Hoo!
Up before dawn, dressed and ready to go, open the curtains and... fog.

Oh bugger.

Normally I'd just say 'back to bed'. Having the opportunity to go birding every day really doesn't mean you have to. Weekend birders, yup, they have to. Not me. And fog does my head in, especially when there's also continual mizzle.

I loathe getting my glasses wet. I've worn glasses since a schoolboy, and have a really duff left eye (the County Recorder knows this and wouldn't ever accept even a common sp. record from me said to be flying flying stage left to stage right) and all the faffing about to keep specs and bins dry wears me down.

Throughout just over a decade's worth of being paid to ring you'd be seeing me pray for rain to get a lay in every few weeks. The rule of thumb for staff and visiting ringers get up, look out, if raining, reset alarm for an hour later and then check again. Some days an extra hour, some days many. Only the maddest of birder-ringers got dressed, got out and got soaked. Real ringers slept in.

Bugger.
This was Day One of my CBC week. Could I force myself to do something? Anything?

Half-an-hour later I'm squinting at cover crops. I'm scouting for Brambling. All rather forlorn, usual Bramblefink tactics here are move in in late autumn and stay off for refuelling only but just long enough to con birders into thinking settled. Then switch to preferred feeding. There's no beech woods on this shore. Yes, as the mast runs low, then more wander in late winter and numbers might build a little again, but last few checks on favoured local roost had only produced the odd bird, and not sure I want to be there at dusk on Count Day, so time to see if I could kick one out along the route.

Not a sniff.

Down to the riverside, and I'm up to my ankles in Chaffinch and Goldfinch on the old brownfield Bloors Wharf. Weeds aplenty close to main local roost on a foggy day? That'll do. Brambling? Nope.


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What is the Christmas Bird Count? 

Christmas Day, 1900, Frank Chapman and 26 other birdwatchers carried out the first Christmas Bird Count (CBC). It has gone on to become the winter bird census for the USA and Canada (and many other western hemisphere countries through central and south America). it represents some 120 years of citizen science, and is coordinated by the National Audubon Society.

(Chapman is also credited with first promoting photography in birding. We'll forgive him that.) 

Unlike our British bird races, it is not a simple tick list. All birds are counted, all day. Taking part is free. All levels welcome. The circle compiler helps put together teams of all abilities. If you live in the circle, you can stay at home and watch your feeders.

(You can also watch your feeders in February, by taking part in the Great Backyard Bird Count. That started in 1998, some nineteen years after the RSPB/Blue Peter got the Blighty garden birdwatch. Answering why has one crossed the pond, but not the other, is part of the reason for my bit of silliness this week.)

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Lunch was back at home drying out. The tide had been and gone, and there was nothing I needed to check in on so it was down to the allotment to fill the feeders. They're hanging up on the boundary fence of Berengrave LNR, a lovely little seasonally flooded chalk pit where many roosts happen.

A couple of days before I'd been talking with one local who was moaning about the lack of birds in there (he'd spent 90 minutes looking for a Firecrest and seen 'not a single bird' in that time). The answer is simple really; a lot (but not all, as 'not a single bird' is birder code for 'not a single bird worth lifting bins for') make their way out of the waterlogged quarry to feed. Some a few kilometres, some just hopping the fence into adjacent gardens. Allotment Fatballs sometimes attract a Long-tailed Tit flock with 'fellow travellers', so my Count Day plan is to stop off for lunch here and watch the feeders. All expectation over reality.

Today as well. All wet'n'orrible this afternoon. I could hear the Chaffinch coming in, a couple of 'crests too. But all a bit grim for any dusk fly-bys. I had to make do with chasing off the North American Bushy-tailed Tree-rats. Made it feel like a real CBC I s'pose.

Ah well. These three scouting days prior to the Count Day aren't compulsory. Besides, there's always tomorrow. Now, what's the forecast?

Oh. Bugger.