With binoculars and cellphones in hand — and likely umbrellas as well — birding experts and volunteers with the Coquitlam-based Burke Mountain Naturalists will be out on Jan. 4 for the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count.
And the 90 participants from the 12 teams out and about — from Shoreline Park in Port Moody to Minnekhada Regional Park on the eastern side of Burke Mountain — will also have clipboards to document not only how many birds they see, but the types of species gathering for the winter.
The Coquitlam group is one of several naturalists clubs in southern B.C. joining the citizen-science project in the 11 days before or after Christmas.
The Vancouver circle, whose territory stretches from Burnaby to West Vancouver, completed its 68th annual count on Dec. 14 while the White Rock circle recorded its sightings on Dec. 28.
After Jan. 5, the National Audubon Society will have 125 years of data from the western hemisphere (it partners with Birds Canada, which coordinates the provincial counts). The observations are used by biologists to see how wild birds are doing and to analyze trends.
Victoria Otton, a longtime Burke Mountain Naturalists member who is organizing the Pitt Meadows count that includes the Tri-Cities, said the local circle started in 1972 with the now-defunct group Alouette Field Naturalists.
For this year’s count, about a dozen new watchers are on the local teams, which are led by a seasoned birder to help identify and record the species.
Otton said more people are becoming interested in bird-watching and the Christmas count because of the outdoor benefits and social aspects. As well, there’s a competitive element to the annual Christmas count, with teams vying to see how many species they’ve tracked on their established route.
Still, these days, they have another tool to recognize the species: Thanks to the phone app Merlin, the counters can take a clip of a bird sound or call.
“It’s kind of changed birding and changed our count,” Otton said, adding the technology can identify a species with good accuracy (recently, they captured the sound of a Hutton’s vireo, a songbird, and sent it to scientists).
On average, the Tri-Cities/Pitt Meadows circle notes about 11,000 birds although, last year, the team saw about 8,000 birds due to the wet weather.
'It's like gambling'
Otton said she’s eager to see what’s in store for the group this year as some species like Anna’s hummingbird that weren’t present before 2008 are now here year-round.
For Langley’s 2024 count, she said, the naturalists recorded six yellow-rumped warblers as did the Victoria circle the previous year.
“We all live in hope,” Otton said, noting Mallard ducks, Canadian geese and American crows are the most common sightings locally. “It’s like gambling. You never know what you’re going to get […] I’m leading a team at Minnekhada Park and we could see sandhill cranes. That would be nice.”
Coquitlam resident Catherine Ho said she started birding with the Burke Mountain Naturalists in 2018 after the loss of her husband, to heal her grief.
For this year’s bird count, she’ll be on the Lafarge Lake route in the City Centre neighbourhood.
Birding, she said, “comes with the joy of just watching these wonderful creatures: their beautiful colour, songs and habitats. Birding connects me deeper with the ecosystem. It is humbling as a human to be part of nature.”
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