CHRISTMAS BIRD COUNT UNDER WAY

OLIVE BRANCH, Ill. -- On Christmas Day in 1900, American conservationists went into the fields to count birds to protest the traditional holiday "side hunt," a team competition to see who could shoot the most birds and animals in one day. This was before migratory birds were granted legal protections, in 1914.

Members of the Four Seasons Audubon Society continued that conservationist tradition in near-freezing temperatures Tuesday, counting birds at Horseshoe Lake Conservation Area as part of the National Audubon Society Christmas Bird Count.

Among their chilled number were Dr. Bill Eddleman, a biology professor at Southeast, and graduate student Michael Evans. They were in the woods at 6:30 a.m., summoning screech and great horned owls with calls.

By noon, Eddleman and Evans had spotted 38 different species of birds. Among them were five turkeys, and numerous flickers, red-bellied and pileated woodpeckers. The birds were counted both by sight and by hearing their song.

Their total was a shadow of the 110 species recorded during a 24-hour period earlier this month in Western Missouri. The mild fall in Western Missouri caused many migratory species to linger, Eddleman theorized. But counting birds annually at this time of year usually provides consistent numbers because most migratory birds should have moved on by now while winter mortality has not yet taken a toll, he said.

The database compiled by the Audubon Society is used to monitor the status of resident and migratory bird populations in the Western Hemisphere.

Some scientists think the information also could be useful at the local level, Evans says.

"It could indicate what we're doing to the environment."

For the first time this year, data from the count will be input through the BirdSource website on the Internet.

About 1,700 different groups composed of 50,000 bird counters participate over the 2 1/2-week period of the national count, which extends across the 50 states, all of Canada, parts of Central and South America, Bermuda, the West Indies and islands in the Pacific.

Each group counts birds in a 24-hour period within a circle 15 miles in diameter. That circle is divided into sectors patrolled by smaller groups within the group.

Many of the bird counters are on foot. Eddleman and Evans traveled their sector by car, stopping along gravel roads to get out and train their binoculars on the surrounding trees. Another group counted the birds on the island in the middle of Horseshoe Lake. They arrived by canoe.

As usual, Eddleman had made cinnamon rolls for the other participants, whom they'd meet at dusk at the conservation area lodge for a countdown party.

The biggest difference between his first bird count in 1976 and this year's count is the dramatic decline in the numbers of Canadian geese, Eddleman says.

"They are declining, and they're not coming down here because it's been so mild up north."

The count will continue at Trail of Tears State Park today and at Mingo National Wildlife Refuge Saturday. Birds were counted at Big Oak Tree State Park Dec. 19.