Just as surely

as Santa Claus is heading our way through the frigid stratusphere, flocks

of birders will soon be fanning out through East Coweta and western Fayette

to count the songbirds and water fowl that winter here.

Just as surely

as families gather at Grandma's for Christmas dinner, shivering bird-census

takers will come in out of the cold to sip hot cider and add up their

lists of sightings.

The annual

Christmas Bird Count is approaching. More than 50,000 volunteers from

all 50 states, every Canadian province, parts of Central and South America,

Bermuda, the West Indies, and pacific islands will count and record every

individual bird and bird species they see during one 24-hour day in the

weeks immediately before and after Christmas.

They'll confine

themselves to about 1,800 count circles, each 15 miles across, covering

about 177 square miles with binoculars sweeping the trees and fields and

pencils making notations as they go.

This collaborative

effort of the National Audubon Society and the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology

is in its 102 nd year. It began on Christmas Day, 1900, when

a band of 27 conservationists in 25 localities initiated an alternative

to the holiday practice of bird-shooting competitions of the time. Why

not compete in counting the greatest number of birds instead of hunting

them?

The CBC is

today considered one of the most significant citizen-based conservation

efforts, and an invaluable tool for monitoring the status of resident

and migratory birds across the Western Hemisphere. Last year, Bird Studies

Canada became involved in the count, and new records were set. More than

54 million individual birds were counted, for a total of 2,485 species,

689 in North America alone.

There are two

designated count locations in the Atlatna area, Marietta and Peachtree

City. The Peachtree City circle is centered approximately in Sharpsburg.

Brock Hutchins

of Fayetteville coordinates the local Christmas census, and is already

enlisting volunteers. There are three ways to participate, he said. He

needs:

Experienced

birders to cover as much ground as possible by car and on foot.

Property owners

who will allow the counters to walk on their land.

Feeder watchers

who get to stay in a warm house all day counting the birds that frequent

their own backyards.

"Last

year," Hutchins said, "we had 20 field counters, with 82 species

and 7,002 individual birds counted."

To take part,

phone Hutchins at 770-461-5042, or write him at [email protected].

For information

visit www.atlantaaudubon.org .

Count results

will be posted almost as fast as they come in on the National Audubon

Society's Web site, www.audubon.org . Another useful Web site is

www.birdsource.org .