Single-handed Bird Math: Elegy for a Christmas Bird Count

By J. Drew Lanham, Safina Center Senior Fellow

Photo by J. Drew Lanham

Another Clemson Christmas Bird Count in the books. My 32nd with the first in 1988. After compiling for 25 years of that stretch, I'm once again "just" a sector leader. Sadly, the counting  job has become easier. Too often these days it's just a matter of one-handed math. The science says billions of birds have disappeared in the last fifty years and it feels like it. So few birds seen today. The counting was often in single digits and tens. One hooded merganser on the Pendleton North sector and no other ducks seen. White-throated and savannah sparrows that we used to count in the hundreds counted in a few dozen. One northern harrier. No wild turkeys. No red-winged blackbirds. No goldfinches. My lone loggerhead shrike didn't  even answer the roll call today. The declines have  been the long standing trend for so many. I can feel the absence as a present and persistent longing for what once was. Common things taken for granted now coming up as zero tallies. I remember my first counts with David Aborn, Sidney Gauthreaux and others when you'd grow weary counting blackbirds by the thousands in Pendleton Swamp and so many song sparrows on the field edges you'd think they were cockleburs. I think we saw/ heard one American Robin (maybe two) today. I can feel the billions gone in my bones. Grateful for those kindred spirits giving effort in the task. Thanks to Kevin Kubach for leadership and  Kate Van Cantfort for coming all the way up from Aiken. Kindred spirits and good weather are a bit of redemption for the feathered things missed.