Just as surely as Santa Claus

is heading our way through the frigid stratosphere, 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 Atlanta 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 .

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