This least sandpiper found in a puddle in Bryson City may have been an omen for the count. Ed Kelley photo

What could be more fun than a weekend of fellowship and great birding? Maybe setting a new record for total number of species recorded during the annual Great Smoky Mountains Birding Expedition?

This year was the 29^th installment of the Great Smoky Mountains Birding Expedition, a Western North Carolina tradition initiated in 1984 by author, naturalist George Ellison, Asheville birder, Rick Pyeritz M.D. who, at the time (1984) had a practice in Bryson City and is now medical director/university physician at University of North Carolina Asheville and Dr. Fred Alsop, field guide author and ornithologist at East Tennessee State University.

I don’t remember the date of the first GSMBE I participated in, it was in the early 2000s. It was such a great trip that I became one of the faithful. But then in 2004 I was awarded a bird-point contract with the USDA Forest Service and my spring-birding calendar was filled. I did, however, save one Saturday in 2004 when I heard that Dr. Alsop was going to join the group for GSMBE’s 20^th Anniversary. I believe that Saturday ended with 104 species. The Sunday morning wrap-up (that I did not attend) produced 6 more species to set the record at 110 species.

The first thing I did this spring when it became evident that I wouldn’t be awarded any FS contracts, was put my name on the list for the GSMBE. I was thrilled when friend, photographer and birding enthusiast Ed Kelley and I arrived at the Ellison’s studio and office Saturday morning (5/10) to find out that Dr. Alsop and his wife Jo Ann would be in attendance. Birding with good birders is the best way to hone your skills and Dr. Alsop and Rick Pyeritz are two of the best I know.

The route for the annual GSMBE is basically the same as it was in 1984 with, perhaps the addition of Tulula Bog, which was created in the late 1990s. The logistics are, as I understand them (and I may not) – the group birds around Bryson City Saturday morning, heading to Collins Creek picnic area in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park for lunch, then up the Blue Ridge Parkway to Heintooga Road, then back down to Kituwah along Highway 19 to finish up Saturday. The Sunday half-day begins at the Nantahala Outdoors Center and proceeds to the Nantahala put-in and on to Tulula bog.

It’s a good diverse mountain route that provides the opportunity for common urban-suburban birds (rock pigeon, starling, house sparrow, mocking bird, etc.) that you need to pad your list. But Bryson City with the river flowing through and the proximity to the mountains always adds much more – like cliff swallow, purple martin and all the rest of the swallows one would expect to find here, yellow warbler, orchard and/or Baltimore orioles and more.

The picnic at Collins Creek gives us a chance to add wood warblers, like blackburnian, hooded, ovenbird and others. Then we race to the top of Heintooga hoping for golden-crowned kinglets, Canada warblers, brown creepers, veerys, ravens and other high-elevation species. After Heintooga its back down – to Kituwah (formerly Ferguson fields) and a shot at lower elevation migrants like blue grosbeak, yellow-breasted chat, eastern kingbird, etc.

The next day it’s on to Nantahala and Tulula Bog and a shot at any wood warblers we may have missed plus Swainson’s warblers and maybe Kentucky and sometimes golden-winged and prairie warblers.

Tune in next weekend for an abridged blow by blow of the outing!

Trailing arbutus was in flower but the damp heavy air muted the wonderful fragrance – Charles Wike photo

We’ve had a good run in the watershed. The Town of Waynesville has sponsored spring and fall guided hikes in its 8,000-plus acre watershed since 2007. The hikes provide a great way for residents and other interested parties to see this wonderful resource that has been placed in a conservation easement to insure the town has an ample supply of high-quality drinking water for generations to come. During the past 12 hikes we have seen a little rain, a little drizzle, a little fog, a little sleet, a little snow and lots of sunshine. This year we saw rain.

We saw lots of rain. And it wasn’t like we didn’t know it was coming. The forecast for the day was 100 percent chance of rain. The skies were close and thick and grey when we met at 9 a.m. at the treatment plant. The impending rain presented an initial dilemma.

For the first time since the hikes started we had an entirely new route planned. We were going to start at the top, where the watershed abuts the Blue Ridge Parkway, and hike down and out to the treatment plant, an estimated five miles or so. In the past we have done several routes, either walking in and returning, from the treatment plant or being shuttled in and walking out – all routes offering the option of turning around and heading out at any time. But if we committed to the top we were in it (rain or shine) till we hit the bottom.

I know I was stoked for the new route and I think the other guides, perennial hike leader Dr. Pete Bates of Western Carolina University, whose group, Forest Stewards helped create the Watershed Management Plan, Ron Lance, botanist and naturalist at North American Land Trust’s Big Ridge Preserve in Jackson County and Alison Melnikova, assistant town manager and hike coordinator since its inception in 2007, were all on the same page.

After a quick huddle, conscience dictated that we offer the alternative of an in and out hike for anyone concerned about the weather. I guess everybody who had those concerns were still home in their pjs, sipping coffee. The hardy crew that showed up (20 or so) was waterproof.

We carpooled up to the Parkway, loaded up in the fog and set out. It was foggy and overcast, but so far dry. There was a little semi-bushwhacking, basically avoiding blackberries and greenbrier, before we accessed the watershed. We saw a lot of trailing arbutus and bluets along the Parkway plus one bunny that sat motionless, convinced it was invisible as the horde of humans sauntered past.

The sprinters (hikers) hit the descent and quickly found their stride, leaving the amblers with Ron and I to observe our surroundings. We had a good first third of the hike – just overcast and maybe a little foggy drizzle. And there was plenty to see – cut-leaved toothwort, spring beauty, trillium erectum, wood anemone, prostrate bluets, squirrel corn, Dutchmen’s britches, early meadow rue, and bloodroot were some of the wildflowers we saw. We also found a really cool earth star fungi of the genus Geastrum.

My daughter Izzy turned logs for us and came up with at least three species of salamanders. I know we had ocoee and blue-ridge two-lined plus one other dusky, I wasn’t sure of the species. And birds were out singing, at one stop we saw/heard black-throated green warbler, blue-headed vireo, ovenbird, and brown creeper.

And then the rain came. It wasn’t too heavy but it was steady. A good all day spring soaker that, after an hour or so kind of made all of us hikers. We plodded out and while it certainly wasn’t the best of circumstances, I never heard any grumbling about “wish we hadn’t come, etc.,” in fact there was still the occasion to stop when someone happened on a bloom they didn’t recognize or found an owl pellet, or something caught their eye.

Even a drenched day in the watershed is a good day if you’re the kind that revels in what Ma Nature has to offer.

Rose-breasted grosbeak showed up on a rainy April afternoon

The blue-headed vireo sang to me of spring sometime around the first week of April. Blue-headeds are generally the last “non-resident” songbird we hear in the fall (sometimes into November) and the first we hear in the spring – probably due to the fact that many overwinter in the warmer climes of the Southeast. But the liquid, slow trilling, “can you hear me?” is a sure sign that Neotropical nesters are on the way home to their nesting grounds.

On April 14 I heard the first flute-like “eee-oo-lay” announcing the return of wood thrushes to the woods adjacent my home. A black-throated green warbler showed up on the next day.

On April 18, the rising “zzeeezzeeeezzee” that breaks off at the end with a sharp “tsip,” let me know that a northern parula was surveying the landscape. I have had one nest in the front yard for the last two years.

Last Friday morning I was snoozing in and out on the couch after a 12-hour work night. The rain was falling, drawing a grey curtain around the large windows, making for perfect napping – but, somehow, a jolt of color grabbed my attention. There in the platform feeder, digging through wet black-oil sunflower seeds,  aits crimson breast shimmering in the rain was my FOY (first-of-the-year) rose-breasted grosbeak.

Without banding, there’s no way of knowing if these particular grosbeaks will be the same ones that nest in my woods; flit in and out of my feeders all summer and bring their young for buffets in the autumn, but I do know that I will share my yard, feeders and deck with these striking creatures from now till October.

I don’t know if it was that same rainy day or the day after that I was headed to town and a silhouette caught by eye; standing on a limb at the side of the road was the small slim shadow of a broad-winged hawk. One of two truly Neotropical raptors (Swainson’s hawk is the other,) the broad-winged also spends the summer in the woods adjacent to my home.

Even though the nights this past weekend flirted with or dipped below freezing I knew that with the company I had, ruby throated hummingbirds could not be far behind. On Saturday, April 20, I filled my hummingbird feeders and put them out. Sunday morning after breakfast, I walked past the bedroom window just in time to catch a male ruby-throat bent over the feeder inhaling a beak full of sugar water.

It’s clear that spring is here but I still have a few summer residents that I am anticipating. I haven’t seen a single flash of crimson or heard the growling “chickkkburrr” of a scarlet tanager yet. And while I don’t need any competition for lazy – I’ve yet to hear the “I am sooo lazzeee” of the black-throated blue warbler.

Male Eastern American toad – Denise Hendershot photo

Love may be a little anthropogenic for toads but the eons old “urge to merge” was quite prevalent last Sunday (4/7) when we were at Oconee State Park. Oconee State Park, in Mountain Rest, Sc., is along U.S. Hwy 11 around 14 miles south of Cashiers, Nc.  and about an hour and a half drive from Waynesville.

The 1165-acre park is an easily accessible, low key, family-friendly destination built by the Civilian Conservation Corps back in the 1930s. Nineteen cabins built by the CCC are available for rent plus there are another 140 standard campsites with water and electrical service plus 15 tent sites. There are two lakes on the property that offer canoe, kayak, paddleboat and johnboat rentals. There is supervised (lifeguards) swimming during the summer. There is an “Old Barn” near the park office where square dancing is offered every Friday night from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

For all its genteel amenities, the park is still a gateway for some of the best wilderness hiking in the upstate. It serves as the western entrance to the Foothills Trail – 76 miles of escarpment trekking that ends at Table Rock State Park.

We were there just for a little end of spring break R&R and to let kids stretch their legs and imagination one last time before the routine starts again. It was double fun because the Wamplers, Steve, Stephanie and their two boys, Andrew and Adam, joined us.

We commandeered a picnic table near one of the lakes where we unloaded bags of food, camp chairs and bicycles. Next we rented a johnboat and a canoe and we were set for the afternoon.

Even from our spot at the opposite end of the lake we could hear, in the distance, the mating trill of American toads. This long, musical trill is high-pitched and can run on for half a minute or so, it’s pretty loud too.

After we got n the boats we kind of migrated toward the trill. We wound up in a really shallow area at the end of the lake. There was a wood duck box there but it was empty. However, a pair of Canada geese had a nest in a marshy area just beyond where the lake ended for boat traffic. As we got closer to the marshy end of the lake, the trills from the toads got louder and louder, it was evident that they were breeding in the reeds and grass in the shallows. Finally, as our eyes acclimated we were able to pick them out. We could see dark silhouettes next to the green reeds. As we quietly and slowly drifted in, we could pick out calling males with their vocal sacs expanded. The males call by inflating part of their mouth lining under their throat with air from a hole in the bottom of their mouths, closing off their mouth and nostrils and pumping this air over their vocal chords. This is what produces the vocal sac.

The female toads, who also feel the urge, approach the males. The males latch onto the backs of the females. The males have (during breeding season) large nuptial pads on the dorsal surface of their “thumbs” that help them cling to the female. Their forearms are also bigger and stronger than females and when they latch on with their nuptial pads during breeding it is known as amplexus. As the female lays her eggs in large strands, the male fertilizes them. We were privy to the whole show – the males calling; the females approaching; amplexus; and the eggs being deposited on the reeds.

Nature is such a wonderful teacher if we simply pay attention.

George Ellison

Wild South held its Fifth Annual Green Gala, celebrating the 2012 Roosevelt-Ashe Society’s Conservation Award winners, last Friday March 22. Wild South is a regional nonprofit with offices in Asheville, Nc. and Moulton, Ala. that works to protect, conserve and enhance the wild places and wild things across the South. According to Wild South’s website the Roosevelt-Ashe Society is “a select group of individuals and businesses committed to sustaining the protection of the Southeast’s wild places. They uphold the legacies of President Theodore Roosevelt and Mr. W.W. Ashe by making personally significant contributions to support Wild South programs.”

And every year, through open nominations, Wild South selects Roosevelt-Ashe nominees in at least five categories to recognize the outstanding work being done to help protect the wild things and wild places of the South. “These awards recognize present day conservation heroes for their contributions to protect wild places and wild things across our region” said Tracy Davids, Wild South’s Executive Director, in a recent press release. ”Like Teddy Roosevelt and W.W. Ashe for whom our giving society and awards are named, their work exemplifies passion, dedication, and leadership.”

“Wild South’s Roosevelt-Ashe Conservation Awards always attract high caliber nominees, and this year is no exception. These conservation heroes have their own amazing stories of passion for a cause, tenacity and victory,” said Todd Witcher, Award Selection Committee member.

This year’s nominees and winners are: Outstanding Business in Conservation – Asheville Independent Restaurant Association (Asheville, Nc.); Cherokee Historical Association (Cherokee, Nc.) and Avondale Brewing Company (Birmingham, Ala.): Outstanding Journalist in Conservation – Bob Davis (Anniston Star, Ala.); Harry Austin (Chattanooga Times Free Press, Tenn.) and George Ellison (Freelance Writer, Naturalist, Nc.): Outstanding Educator in Conservation – Mark Case (Southern Guilford High, Nc.); Tracy Childers (West McDowell Jr. High School, Nc.) and Heather Montgomery (McDowell Environmental Center, Dragonfly EE Programs, Ala.): Outstanding Youth in Conservation – Mirel Crumb (Food for Life, Sierra Club, Tenn.); Maya Crumb (Food for Life, Sierra Club, Tenn.) and Avalon Thiesen (Conserve it Forward, Fla.): Outstanding Conservationist – Charles Rose (Shoals Environmental Alliance, Ala.); Margaret Copeland (Friends of Noxubee, Audubon Society, Miss.) and Chris Oberholster (The Nature Conservancy, Ala.) An independent committee composed of respected conservationists from around the South selects the winners every year. And it’s a job I sure don’t envy because when I looked around that room last Friday night at the nominees – they were (are) all winners.

I feel especially fortunate to have been present on the evening my friend, George Ellison, won his award for Outstanding Journalist in Conservation. Ellison’s literary accomplishments are many and varied. He wrote the biographical introductions for the reissues of two Southern Appalachian classics: Horace Kephart’s Our Southern Highlanders and James Mooney’s History, Myths, and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees. A collection of his essays, Mountain Passages: Natural and Cultural History of Western North Carolina, was published in 2005 and that just scratches the surface as he continues to have his work published. In 2012 The History Press published Permanent Camp: Poems, Narratives and Renderings from the Smokies that includes his wife Elizabeth Ellison’s art.

And after decades of leading natural history programs and seminars in indoors and outdoors settings across the mountains of Western North Carolina for groups and venues ranging from North Carolina Arboretum, University of Tennessee’s Smoky Mountain Field School, North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching, to the Intentional Growth Center, Center for Life Enrichment, to the Swag Inn on the Cataloochee Divide, Ellison is still the most sought after naturalist in the Western North Carolina mountains. Congratulations friend.

The Milky Way – NASA photo

I have seen the light and I don’t like it. I have seen the light emanating from strip malls; from sports stadiums; from urban skylines; from cul-de-sacs; from factories; from almost any place twilight finds Homo sapiens and I don’t like it. I don’t like it because I can’t see the stars; I can’t touch the heavens; I can’t revel in the firmament of dying and exploding suns; I can’t see the stuff I’m made of.

It wasn’t always so. Our ancestors had an intimate relationship with the night skies. Ancient mariners would have never docked without Polaris. And where would science be without Copernicus and Galileo? The heavens have always reflected thoughts of beauty, love, imagination, philosophy, literature and awe. “I know that I am mortal by nature, and ephemeral; but when I trace at my pleasure the windings to and fro of the heavenly bodies I no longer touch the earth with my feet: I stand in the presence of Zeus himself and take my fill of ambrosia,” – Ptolemy.

I love it when the night sky plops to the ground like a curtain dragging across a stage, when the stars actually twinkle and the eye of Taurus glows red. My co-workers thought me a bit daft, when I worked as an offshore surveyor in the Gulf of Mexico, because I would always volunteer if one of the survey points was on an abandoned platform. Sure it would mean no cooked meal, no hot shower and gasp, no television, but it would mean being bathed in starlight from dusk till dawn and I was okay with the tradeoff.

Light pollution (the illumination of the night sky caused by artificial light) is increasing (at the speed of light?) around the world since the invention of the incandescent bulb 125 years ago. It is estimated that today, fully two-thirds of Americans cannot walk outside at night, look up and see the Milky Way. And even more than that are affected in someway by light pollution.

International Dark-Sky Association (IDA,) created in 1988 was the first organization to call attention to the perils of light pollution. IDA is still in the forefront when it comes to seeking, promoting and helping to implement programs/procedures that can limit and/or reduce the impacts of light pollution.

They have a wonderful website – www.darksky.org – where you can go to learn about light pollution – sources, causes, remedies, etc. Unlike many of the environmental challenges facing us, light pollution, is something we have the technologies and abilities to deal with right now. And instead of costing us money, most light pollution remedies will save money. According to IDA, the United States spends over $2 billion on light-energy that only serves to blot out the night skies. You can learn about many alternatives and how to support them on the IDA website or you can call them at 1-  (520) 293-3198 and request information.

IDA also has a program where it recognizes places of exceptional nighttime beauty. There are still a few left in the U.S. and one, listed in their “International Dark Sky Parks” – Big Bend National Park – still sings to me. A group of friends and I took a float trip out to Big Bend back in the 70s and between Santa Elena Canyon and Mariscal Canyon we slept in the dessert  – one of those places where night’s curtain drags across the stage, and one of those places that leaves a scar on your soul.

Izzy with baby gator at BBLNWR

I know, I know, we’ve been in Louisiana for two weeks now, but when I look back at some of the photos and think of our trip I see a lot in common between public lands there and public lands here. Because of a lot of political demagoguing and hypocritical chest-thumping about fiscal conservatism with one hand while passing obscene subsidies on to the most lucrative energy companies in the world with the other hand, over the past few years, public agencies like the National Park System, the National Forest Service, National Wildlife Refuges and state and local parks have come to depend on “Friends” groups for basic undertakings like education, outreach and research.

Most everyone in Western North Carolina is familiar with groups like Friends of the Smokies, Friends of the Blue Ridge Parkway and others. Black Bayou Lake National Wildlife Refuge in Monroe, La. has it’s own stellar “Friends.”  Friends of Black Bayou (FoBB) came into existence in 1997 just one month after the opening of the refuge in July. FoBB has been instrumental in forging a vibrant, eclectic outreach, fundraising and educational component at BBLNWR. They were instrumental in moving and renovating an original “planter’s” home on the property to create the refuge’s visitor center.

In 2004 FoBB was cited as the top Refuge Friends group in the country. The next year they helped add the Conservation Learning Center next door to the Visitor’s Center. They continue today to support the refuge through educational programs, celebrations like their annual Fall Celebration, guided kayak/canoe trips and so much more. They sponsor an annual photography contest plus help with upkeep of the photo blind and the refuge trails.

One of the areas made possible by FoBB is a small demonstration prairie with a boardwalk trail. I am especially fond of this area, being from the land of the red sea – Mer Rouge. Legend has it that when French explorers made it to Red Hill a bump in the landscape just west of Mer Rouge they looked down on a prairie swimming with the russet heads of switchgrass and/or little bluestem – thus the name Mer Rouge (red sea.)

We were so fortunate on the day we were there for the Great Backyard Bird Count to meet new FoBB president Allen Dunn and former president, now vice-president Ann Smith. Dunn, who also does outreach for FoBB at local schools, took Izzy and Maddie over to the Conservation Learning Center and let them hold baby alligators and endangered Louisiana pine snakes.

And now for all the wonderful work these Friends and all Friends groups around the country do – they are going to get dumped on again by the people in D.C. we elected, whose responsibility should be to upkeep our public lands in such a manner that Friends groups, should be lagniappe, rather than nuts and bolts.

According to a National Resources Defense Council study the budget cuts that just went into effect because of more political posturing and line drawing in the sand like bullies on a playground that want to take their ball and go home rather than let everyone play will cost our public lands about $220 million dollars. And will cost those highly profitable energy companies who are receiving $8 billion in subsidies a whopping $0 – c’est la vie.

Toothy friend from Cajun Country Swamp Tour – Denise Hendershot photo

What better place to start part deaux than Breaux Bridge along Bayou Teche? Firmin Breaux originally purchased the area that is now Breaux Bridge in 1771, from New Orleans” businessman Jean Francois Ledée who had acquired the land as an original French land grant. And, of course, Bayou Teche was already there, had been, in fact, for thousands of years but not in it’s bayou-form.  Bayou Teche was the main channel of the Mississippi River up till about 3,000 years ago.  And the Big Muddy is inching her way back, cozying up to the Atchafalaya but dams and levees and the Army Corp of Engineers are all there to see that doesn’t happen.

I don’t know if it’s in the same spot where Breaux built his first bridge over the Teche but there’s an old drawbridge on Bridge Street that carries you across the bayou in the heart of this quaint and colorful Cajun town. A town that officially became the “Crawfish Capital of the World” back in 1959 and is home to the Crawfish Festival, one of the area’s largest annual fais do-dos. But we weren’t there for the mudbugs, we were there for the Cajun Country Swamp Tour.

Cajun Country Swamp Tour is a Mom and Pop business that operates out of a public boat launch on Lake Martin about five miles south of Breaux Bridge. The guides for the tour are Butch Guchereaux and his son Shawn. Our vessel for the tour was a cool, modified “crawfish skiff” with a bevy of captains chairs bolted to the bottom. The 20 or so foot V-hulled steel skiff can easily accommodate 15 adults but is designed to take you to the nether regions of the swamp.

And the swamp is the Cypress Island/Lake Martin Swamp. It’s part backwater and part swamp and all teaming with wildlife. It is included in The Nature Conservancy, Louisiana’s 9,500-acre Cypress Island Preserve. The south end of Lake Martin is a world-renown wading bird rookery with perhaps 20,000 egrets, herons, ibises, roseate spoonbills and others nesting in the cypresses and tupelos. Unfortunately for us (fortunate for the rookery) boat access to the rookery is banned from Feb. 15 (we were there Feb. 18) through July 31 to insure a productive nesting season.

Shawn Guchereaux was our guide and I have to admit that when I met him I was instantly transported back in time to the years I spent living and working out of Lafayette, where that rich Cajun accent was as much a part of the ambiance as the thick, salty Louisiana breeze. And Shawn was not only amiable, with Cajun stories to tell, he was also knowledgeable about the swamp ecosystem, the native flora and fauna and adept at easing our crawfish skiff alongside, gators, snakes, turtles and nutrias. We couldn’t go into the rookery but we still saw white ibises, great blue herons, anhingas, great egrets, double-crested cormorants, a black-crowned night heron, one sleepy, photogenic barred owl and more.

It was a wonderful (easy with kids) tour and one I highly recommend. You can learn about the tour online at www.cajuncountryswamptours.com/ or by phone at 337.319.0010.

Anhinga drying his wings at BBLNWR – Burg Ransom photo

Translation — Great Backyard Bird Count at Black Bayou Lake National Wildlife Refuge; the tradition continues.

Since a spur-of-the-moment GBBC at Black Bayou with my brother back in 2006, I have only missed two years of counting in Louisiana. It’s a great excuse to visit friends and family with a great bird count in a beautiful setting thrown in as lagniappe. And this year’s trip followed suit beautifully.

After a day of visiting family and showing my little girls around the tiny village of Mer Rouge, where I grew up, we headed to a small camp along the Ouachita River for a cookout hosted by old friend and fellow Mer Rougeian Gil White. There was a fire ring, a circle of friends, open area for little girls to stretch their legs, adult beverages, vegetable carbonnade and copious lies that everyone swore were the absolute truth — in short, a perfect evening.

Friends and family, happy and full, waddled off by ones and twos into the dark, leaving Gil, the girls and me to spend the night before heading to Black Bayou the next morning to count birds. Gil had his tent up to sleep in, graciously turning over the tiny camp, complete with wood stove, to the girls and me. In a fitting end to a wonderful evening, a large pack of coyotes serenaded us around bedtime.

The next morning we drove over to Black Bayou. My wife met us there to pick up the girls, who were not up for a few hours of kicking around the refuge counting birds. Gil and I began the morning standing on a bridge over Bayou Desiard as a seemingly unending stream of common grackles passed overhead. We recorded a very conservative 800 individuals.

We were soon joined by Burg Ransom. Ransom is a super photographer and Black Bayou provides a great setting for much of his work. If you have access, check out his FaceBook page to see some wonderful photography.

Well, we counted birds, but I have to admit we didn’t beat the bushes the way we have in the past. In fact, we didn’t even get to one area of the refuge we usually cover.

On the flip side, it was a great morning to hike the trails of Black Bayou with friends and we still managed a respectable count. We ended with a total of 59 species and got great looks at lots of great birds like loggerhead shrike, bald eagle, several red- tail hawks, anhinga, wood duck and a beautiful male purple martin.

The only drawback to this annual trek is always the same. It ends way too early. But next February is only 12 months away and the bayou, the camp and friends and family will be beckoning once again.

Look for high numbers of pine siskins this GBBC

Of course, you’re no longer confined to your backyard like you were back in 1997 when the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) launched. Sixteen years later and the GBBC is going global. Anyone around the world with Internet access can participate. The basic count format is the same. One watches at any location for at least 15 minutes – and yes your backyard feeders are still relevant – record the species seen and the number of individuals of each species. In concert with the new global initiative there will be some changes regarding how you submit your data.

This year, for the first time, you will have to register to enter your count data. Registering will automatically integrate your GBBC data with eBird. Created in 2002, eBird is a joint venture between the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society. Originally covering the Western Hemisphere, eBird went global in 2010 paving the way for a global GBBC. For you birders who already have an eBird account, you can enter your data there and it will be automatically included in the GBBC database.

There are four days to count, February 15 – 18. And since you’re only required to spend 15 minutes at any one location you can hit as many or as few of your favorite bird haunts as you have time for. And it’s useful data. It’s not hard to imagine the myriad logistical conundrums presented by trying to understand the biology of these amazing winged marvels, many of which will traverse thousands of miles in any given year. No single ornithologist, nor single university nor single organization could ever hope to single-handedly keep track of all the variables. But data from citizen-science projects such as the GBBC, the Christmas Bird Count, International Migratory Bird Day along with databases like eBird provide scientists with much needed, valuable data regarding population and/or range/distribution fluctuations.

There were more than 104,000 checklists submitted from last year’s GBBC. Those checklists documented 623 species and more than 17 million birds. Think about that extrapolated around the world. It will surely take some years to get a true global picture, but imagine the benefits if it gets to that point. There are more than 10,000 species of birds worldwide. Just think what it could mean to avian conservation to have an annual snapshot of where the majority of those species were and what their population status was.

To learn the ins and outs of the GBBC, including directions on how to register go to http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/ and follow the menu on the left hand side of the page. Once the count starts on February 15 you can go to that website, follow the prompts and discover who is seeing what around the world.

I will be heading to Louisiana again this year to visit family and friends and count at Black Bayou Lake National Wildlife Refuge. There is an added impetus to the Louisiana tour this year. Izzy (my fifth grader) has chosen Louisiana as the focus of her PowerPoint presentation for her media class so we’ve added days for her to see and learn about my home state. Besides Black Bayou, we will also be doing a swamp tour in the Atchafalaya Basin, and then on to the Big Easy; expect reports from the road.