Beginning Christmas Day 1900, ornithologist Frank Chapman proposed counting birds as a substitute of taking pictures them.
Chapman was an early officer within the Audubon Society.
Previously, the normal Christmas “side hunt” concerned a contest between armed opponents who would stalk fields and forests and vie to see who may kill probably the most birds and mammals.
More than 120 years later, Chapman’s Christmas Count custom continues within the Deer Lodge Valley. Two circles, every with a radius of about 7 miles, outline the census-taking boundaries for birders. The circles are seen on the National Audubon Society web site.
One contains the Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site in Deer Lodge and the opposite accommodates the Warm Springs Ponds and a number of different floor.
Gary Swant of Deer Lodge, maybe the area’s best-known birder, and 9 others participated within the Dec. 19 chicken depend at Grant-Kohrs and neighborhood.
People are additionally studying…
“We identified 39 species and 2,540 individual birds,” Swant stated.
He was stunned that the species included pine grosbeaks, which he stated he’d not noticed earlier than in that instant space in winter.
Swant stated there have been fewer raptors noticed than is typical. He attributed the change to a scarcity of snow. Snow within the greater elevations usually strikes raptors to the valleys to hunt, he stated.
Still, the day’s chicken counters noticed a rough-legged hawk, a bald eagle, a golden eagle and a Northern harrier hawk, he stated.
A second chicken depend is scheduled for Jan. 1 on the Warm Springs Ponds.
The web site is well-known amongst severe birdwatchers within the area. Depending on the season and whether or not the settling ponds are ice lined, many waterfowl species congregate there. Bald eagles are sometimes seen.
The Warm Springs Ponds, that are settling ponds housing sediments contaminated by historic mining and smelting upstream, are an ironic however very actual chicken refuge. The ponds are a part of a federal Superfund web site and their ultimate destiny stays unsure.
They have been constructed to settle out contaminated sediments flowing down Silver Bow Creek. The ponds cowl an space of about 4 sq. miles and include an estimated 19 million cubic yards of mine tailings, wastes and contaminated sediment.
A spring 2021 survey by college students and supervising college on the University of Montana Western discovered diverse opinions about whether or not the ponds ought to keep or go. Many folks reported favorable leisure experiences, together with birdwatching, tied to the Warm Springs Ponds.
Meanwhile, Swant stated the Jan. 1 chicken depend will cowl a large space and sure encounter good numbers of waterfowl if the Warm Springs Ponds have sections with open water.
He stated the annual Christmas Bird Count gives a worthwhile check-up on chicken populations as a result of the depend’s many years of knowledge assist present inhabitants modifications.
To join the Christmas Bird Count on the Warm Springs Ponds on Jan. 1 contact [email protected].
