Bird Counters Sought

The National Audubon Society is looking for volunteer bird counters to participate in the annual Christmas bird count on the East End.

The tradition of the Christmas bird count dates to Christmas Day in 1900, when 27 naturalists led by Frank Champman conducted a bird count in protest of the traditional "side hunts" in which teams of hunters competed to see who could shoot the most number of birds and other animals in one day.

This year, the Christmas count organized by the Audubon Society will last 16 days beginning Dec. 21. It will include 1,700 individual counts organized throughout all 50 states, the Canadian provinces, parts of Central and South America, the West Indies, and some Pacific Islands. More than 45,000 people are expected to participate.

The East End count is actually four separate counts: Montauk (the count actually extends to East Hampton), Sagaponack and Hook Ponds, Orient, and Quogue-to-Water Mill.

Last year during the Montauk Christmas bird count 55 observers recorded 39,445 individual birds of 131 species from Hog Creek through Amagansett to Montauk Point. Rare birds included a black guillemot found at Ditch Plain, two Barrow's goldeneyes in Lake Montauk, a barnacle goose, a European bird found at Montauk Downs, and a Bohemian waxwing at Camp Hero.

Anyone can participate in the counts, although veteran birders are preferred as the counting gets fast and furious. Anyone who feeds birds can join in as a "feeder watcher," a volunteer who records the numbers and species of birds to visit the feeder on the count day.

Those interested in participating in the Montauk or Sagaponack count are asked to contact Hugh McGuinness at Friends World College at Southampton College. Barbara Scherzer of Hampton Bays is the contact for the Quogue-Water Mill count. The Orient count is compiled by Mary Laura Lamont of Riverhead.