BLUEFIELD — The sky above southern West Virginia is for the birds each year around Christmas, and volunteers working on the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count braved sub-freezing temperatures and snow-covered fields to participate in a continent-wide census of North America’s avian population.
Jim Phillips, naturalist at the Nature Center of Pipestem State Park started participating in the annual bird count 39 years ago after he read an article about it in the Bluefield Daily Telegraph in 1972. “That’s the way I got turned on to it, and I’ve been participating in the Audubon Christmas Bird Count ever since,” Phillips said. “The Audubon Society encourages you to conduct your bird count any day from Dec. 14 until Jan. 5. “We decided to hold our count on Dec. 18, 2010. It was cold on that day, but we still had plenty of volunteers out with us.”
Jim and his wife, Judy Phillips were joined by Bob Barker, Courtney Clemons, Rodney Davis, Bill and Margaret Hank, Nancy Hoops, Cheryl Miller, Betsy Reeder, Wade Snyder, Allen and Mindy Waldron and Barry Williams.
“We counted 79 different species of birds,” Phillips said. “That was a huge number for us. For the past 39 years, we have averaged about 62 or 63 species. One year, we had 71 species, but this year’s count of 79 species is the most we have had since I started participating in the count.” The volunteers counted 3,719 individual birds.
Phillips explained that Frank Chapman, a director of the Audubon Society, organized the first Christmas Bird Count in 1900, in response to the tradition called the Christmas “Side Hunt,” a hunter’s practice of going out on Christmas day, killing as many wild animals as possible, including birds and game, and placing the animals in a pile. The hunter who displayed the largest pile was deemed winner of the Side Hunt. Chapman organized a group of 27 bird counters in the U.S. and Canada who went out and counted bird species on Christmas Day, 1900. All 27 counters recorded a total of 90 species on the initial count.
Phillips was particularly excited about the fact that this year, the group that worked a 15-mile radius circle centered at the Nature Center and including both Pipestem and Bluestone state parks along with the town of Hinton spotted several new species during this count. New species that the local volunteers spotted included 41 common mergansers, 42 eastern towhee, 26 fox sparrow, 230 white-throated sparrow, 611 dark-eyed junco and 18 rusty blackbirds.
“It was also exciting to see one ruddy duck, one American wigeon and one loggerhead shrike,” Phillips said. He added that the birds tend to be more active during bad weather conditions while they’re out looking for food. Other single birds that the group spotted included a gadwell, one double-crested cormorant, a northern harrier, an eastern screech owl, a barred owl, a red-breasted nuthatch, a brown thrasher, an American tree sparrow and a pine siskin. “The count is done nationwide,” Phillips said.
The Pipestem bird counters also spotted four bald eagles, 378 Canada geese, 126 Carolina chicadees, 14 great blue heron, two sharp-shinned hawks, six ring-billed gulls, four belted kingfishers, five hairy woodpeckers, 14 pileated woodpeckers, 105 mallards, five eastern phoebes, 38 golden-crowned kinglets, three cedar waxwings, a dozen yellow-rumped warblers, nine red-winged blackbirds, eight common grackles and 14 yellow-bellied sapsuckers, to name a few.
“Yes, yellow-bellied sapsuckers like the birds Jane Hathaway was looking for on the ‘Beverly Hillbillies,’” Phillips said.
Ron Canterbury, a professor at the University of Cincinnati, returned to his native Raleigh County where he participated in the Raleigh County Christmas Bird Count organized by Allen Waldron and held on Dec. 19, 2010. Canterbury participated in that count with Allen and Mindy Waldron, Wade Snyder and Bob Dameron. The volunteers counted 56 species and 9,323 individual birds — a number that was greatly augmented by the 7,860 American crows the volunteers counted.
“There is a large roost of crows in Raleigh County ... Beckley,” Phillips said. “That’s like the large roost of crows you have in Bluefield.”
Along with participating in the Raleigh County count, four years ago, Canterbury resurrected the Christmas Bird Count organized by the late Dr. Paul Cecil Bibbee in the 1940s. Canterbury served as compiler on the Athens/Princeton count that took place on Dec. 23, 2010 with Ben Carter, Janet Meyer, Jim and Judy Phillips and Allen Waldron joining in the effort. The volunteers counted 42 species, 1,774 individual birds. The group counted 38 cedar waxwings, 14 eastern towhees, 92 dark-eyed junco and four yellow-bellied sapsuckers.
“We don’t have enough observers,” Canterbury said. “There has been a decline in American goldfinch. We’re seeing a lot fewer of them on these counts.
“We do better on the Christmas Bird Count when the weather is bad,” he said. “I can remember doing a count back in the 1980s when the weather was in the 60s. We didn’t see many birds at all that day.”
Canterbury and Phillips said they owe a great deal of thanks to the efforts of Dr. Bibbee who taught biology at (then) Concord College for 32 years. Bibbee, who died in 1971, was state taxidermist for West Virginia University and mammal preparer for Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh. He received his undergraduate degree at West Virginia University and earned his Ph.D., at Cornell University. His publications include “Birds of West Virginia,” and Bird Life Histories and Behaviors.”
Jim Phillips, naturalist at the Nature Center of Pipestem State Park started participating in the annual bird count 39 years ago after he read an article about it in the Bluefield Daily Telegraph in 1972. “That’s the way I got turned on to it, and I’ve been participating in the Audubon Christmas Bird Count ever since,” Phillips said. “The Audubon Society encourages you to conduct your bird count any day from Dec. 14 until Jan. 5. “We decided to hold our count on Dec. 18, 2010. It was cold on that day, but we still had plenty of volunteers out with us.”
Jim and his wife, Judy Phillips were joined by Bob Barker, Courtney Clemons, Rodney Davis, Bill and Margaret Hank, Nancy Hoops, Cheryl Miller, Betsy Reeder, Wade Snyder, Allen and Mindy Waldron and Barry Williams.
“We counted 79 different species of birds,” Phillips said. “That was a huge number for us. For the past 39 years, we have averaged about 62 or 63 species. One year, we had 71 species, but this year’s count of 79 species is the most we have had since I started participating in the count.” The volunteers counted 3,719 individual birds.
Phillips explained that Frank Chapman, a director of the Audubon Society, organized the first Christmas Bird Count in 1900, in response to the tradition called the Christmas “Side Hunt,” a hunter’s practice of going out on Christmas day, killing as many wild animals as possible, including birds and game, and placing the animals in a pile. The hunter who displayed the largest pile was deemed winner of the Side Hunt. Chapman organized a group of 27 bird counters in the U.S. and Canada who went out and counted bird species on Christmas Day, 1900. All 27 counters recorded a total of 90 species on the initial count.
Phillips was particularly excited about the fact that this year, the group that worked a 15-mile radius circle centered at the Nature Center and including both Pipestem and Bluestone state parks along with the town of Hinton spotted several new species during this count. New species that the local volunteers spotted included 41 common mergansers, 42 eastern towhee, 26 fox sparrow, 230 white-throated sparrow, 611 dark-eyed junco and 18 rusty blackbirds.
“It was also exciting to see one ruddy duck, one American wigeon and one loggerhead shrike,” Phillips said. He added that the birds tend to be more active during bad weather conditions while they’re out looking for food. Other single birds that the group spotted included a gadwell, one double-crested cormorant, a northern harrier, an eastern screech owl, a barred owl, a red-breasted nuthatch, a brown thrasher, an American tree sparrow and a pine siskin. “The count is done nationwide,” Phillips said.
The Pipestem bird counters also spotted four bald eagles, 378 Canada geese, 126 Carolina chicadees, 14 great blue heron, two sharp-shinned hawks, six ring-billed gulls, four belted kingfishers, five hairy woodpeckers, 14 pileated woodpeckers, 105 mallards, five eastern phoebes, 38 golden-crowned kinglets, three cedar waxwings, a dozen yellow-rumped warblers, nine red-winged blackbirds, eight common grackles and 14 yellow-bellied sapsuckers, to name a few.
“Yes, yellow-bellied sapsuckers like the birds Jane Hathaway was looking for on the ‘Beverly Hillbillies,’” Phillips said.
Ron Canterbury, a professor at the University of Cincinnati, returned to his native Raleigh County where he participated in the Raleigh County Christmas Bird Count organized by Allen Waldron and held on Dec. 19, 2010. Canterbury participated in that count with Allen and Mindy Waldron, Wade Snyder and Bob Dameron. The volunteers counted 56 species and 9,323 individual birds — a number that was greatly augmented by the 7,860 American crows the volunteers counted.
“There is a large roost of crows in Raleigh County ... Beckley,” Phillips said. “That’s like the large roost of crows you have in Bluefield.”
Along with participating in the Raleigh County count, four years ago, Canterbury resurrected the Christmas Bird Count organized by the late Dr. Paul Cecil Bibbee in the 1940s. Canterbury served as compiler on the Athens/Princeton count that took place on Dec. 23, 2010 with Ben Carter, Janet Meyer, Jim and Judy Phillips and Allen Waldron joining in the effort. The volunteers counted 42 species, 1,774 individual birds. The group counted 38 cedar waxwings, 14 eastern towhees, 92 dark-eyed junco and four yellow-bellied sapsuckers.
“We don’t have enough observers,” Canterbury said. “There has been a decline in American goldfinch. We’re seeing a lot fewer of them on these counts.
“We do better on the Christmas Bird Count when the weather is bad,” he said. “I can remember doing a count back in the 1980s when the weather was in the 60s. We didn’t see many birds at all that day.”
Canterbury and Phillips said they owe a great deal of thanks to the efforts of Dr. Bibbee who taught biology at (then) Concord College for 32 years. Bibbee, who died in 1971, was state taxidermist for West Virginia University and mammal preparer for Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh. He received his undergraduate degree at West Virginia University and earned his Ph.D., at Cornell University. His publications include “Birds of West Virginia,” and Bird Life Histories and Behaviors.”
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