The Christmas Bird Count (A Christmas Remembrance) opus 717
| 26 December 2025 1045 Hours | | Ornithology, Conservation, History, Massachusetts, Youth |
The US Audubon Society, this year, 126 years ago,
Began the Christmas Bird Count.
The winter season was chosen to count bird populations,
Which are settled in for the winter, and more accurately counted.
These 'amateur' data gathering efforts aid scientific understanding
Of bird population dynamics.
As a child, birds were a major group on which I focussed.
Starting with many avian observations in my home yard,
I grew restless to explore beyond my half acre homestead.
I learned about the Audubon Christmas Bird Count
And gained permission from my parents to join a count,
Which unfolded for me on the Massachusetts coast.
Sea birds were all unfamiliar to me and I drank in all the new species.
Many years later, I began the count on the Quail Ridge Reserve,
Which Nora and I labored so diligently to create and see flourish.
On pondering this wonderful past, I began to calculate
That, now being 84, and having joined my first Count at about 12,
(Before the halfway mark of its existence!)--
A bit of a shock, and then pride welled within me
To realize I had been participating in such an historical flow of events.