week of 1/7/04
 
 
 


The Naturalist's Corner
By Don Hendershot

The Carolina Field Birders (CFB) club and volunteers conducted their second annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count (CBC) last Saturday, Jan. 3. After last year’s frigid start, counters were in a jovial mood leaving Beaver’s Drive-In at 7 a.m. in shirtsleeves, sweaters and/or light jackets. But for some groups the balmy conditions simply provided false expectations. For those groups surveying Lake Junaluska, Lake Logan and the rural farmlands at lower elevations, the morning was quite busy. For those of use working forest settings and higher elevations the morning and most of the day were awfully quite.

The CFB’s Christmas count area is a 15-mile diameter circle covering a large area of western Haywood County plus Balsam Mountain Preserve in Jackson County. BMP is a private, upscale gated development with a twist — nearly 3,000 of the 4,400 acres are set aside in a conservancy held by North American Land Trust and managed by BMP’s Land Trust, a non-profit charged with managing and preserving the integrity of the conservancy.

The Land Trust has partnered with CFB to help sponsor its CBC and provide access and help with logistics on BMP. Last year’s efforts on the preserve netted 15 ruffed grouse, one of the highest tallies in the Southeast. This year the preserve was one of those spots in the doldrums.

I have helped with breeding-bird surveys, migration surveys and CBCs at BMP for the last three years. Last Saturday I would drive to places that have, historically, been very birdy. We would get out of the vehicle and be greeted by dead silence — not a chirp, not a twitter, not a flutter.

We had split into two groups to cover the preserve with Bob Olthoff, the CBC compiler, leading one group and me the other. When we met for lunch break, the two groups together had a total of only 14 or 15 species. We only had three ruffed grouse and no one had seen a wild turkey.

Wayne Forsythe, compiler of the Henderson County CBC, offered a plausible theory for the lack of activity. He suggested that the unseasonably warm weather might actually be working against us. When it is cold birds need to eat more to keep their metabolism up to help stay warm. This often creates activity as mixed flocks scurry through the forest seeking food. Saturday was so balmy the birds may have been just lounging around.

I believe the paucity of grouse and turkey could have also been weather-related, in a somewhat similar scenario. Last Christmas the count started off bitterly cold and count numbers were low early. But as it warmed up the birds became more active and by 2 or 3 p.m. we had counted 25 species including 15 grouse and a number of turkeys. I figure the roads and roadsides in BMP are the first areas to warm up on those cold mornings. Birds like grouse and turkey that like to forage in weedy areas would be attracted to the roadsides, putting them in proximity with the counters. Of course no one really knows what birds are thinking.

We wound up with 23 species for BMP, which is not bad compared to last year’s 25, but instead of being done at 2 or 3 p.m. We cruised the preserve till 4:30 p.m. But we were rewarded. As we were heading out, a mature red-tailed hawk glided in and perched about 75 feet from us. And then, about a half-mile farther down the road we spied a group of nine wild turkeys foraging near the road.

The unofficial species total for this year’s CBC was 69, same as last year, which is not bad for a winter’s day in the mountains. Although the water was low at Junaluska, it wasn’t frozen like last year and it yielded more waterfowl, including northern shoveller, gadwall, American widgeon and green-winged teal.

Another group that was working the higher elevations around Maggie Valley and Soco Gap also suffered through a slow day. Their dedication paid off, however, with a red crossbill at Cataloochee Ranch.

(Don Hendershot can be reached at ddihen@juno.com)