If you’re looking for a fun way to explore the area, spot some wildlife, and contribute to an ongoing study that started more than a century ago, come on out to the annual Ashcroft-Cache Creek (ACC) Christmas Bird Count, which takes place this year on Saturday, Dec. 21.
You don’t need to be a “birder” to take part: a willingness to spend a winter’s day driving along local streets and highways, looking at trees, hedges, and the occasional bird feeder, makes you as qualified as anyone to join the count.
“I joined the first ACC Christmas Bird Count in 2005, after local resident Nancy Josephson came into my office to tell me about the first count in our area and to drop off some information,” says team leader Wendy Coomber. She adds that an interest in birds runs in her family.
“My parents were ‘birders’ and my mother, especially, was always looking for new birds to add to her list. I could tell the difference between a robin and a blue jay and the ubiquitous sparrow, but I didn’t pay much attention beyond that.
“When Nancy told me about the Count, I was mildly curious and so I attended. It was a small group, but I was paired up with team leader Karl Ricker, who was a very experienced and avid birder and knew no (physical) boundaries when it came to tracking down those elusive birds.
“In short, I had a blast! And I saw some very scenic parts of this area that I hadn’t seen before. I can also identify a few more birds now, and also appreciate more fully how birds add to the biodiversity that keeps our planet alive.”
Now in its 20th year, the ACC Christmas Bird Count is once again gearing up to hit the road and count every last sparrow, finch, crow, kestrel, robin, and eagle that participants can find. There will also be the annoying Eurasian collared doves that everyone loves to hate, which rebounded in numbers last year after a record low in 2022, but are not quite as ubiquitous as they used to be.
In 2023, rock pigeons — which like to hang out near the railway tracks in Ashcroft — were the most common bird spotted, but last year the group was thrilled to add first-time sightings of Trumpeter swans, wood ducks, and western meadowlarks (the latter often seen here in summer but never in the winter) to its 40 species of nearly 3,000 birds counted.
The Christmas Bird Count began on Christmas Day 1900, when ornithologist Frank M. Chapman, an early officer in the then-nascent Audubon Society, proposed a new holiday tradition: a “Christmas Bird Census" that would count birds during the holidays rather than hunt them.
It turned into the Christmas Bird Count, which now takes place worldwide between Dec. 14 and Jan. 5. Tens of thousands of volunteers, armed with birding books, binoculars, notebooks, and cameras, brave snow, wind, or rain to take part in the effort.
The data collected by observers over the past 125 years allows Audubon Society researchers, conservation biologists, wildlife agencies, and other interested individuals to study the long-term health and status of bird populations across North America. When combined with other surveys such as the Breeding Bird Survey, it provides a picture of how the continent's bird populations have changed in time and space since that first census in 1900.
The long term perspective is vital for conservationists. It informs strategies to protect birds and their habitat, and helps identify environmental issues with implications for people as well. Ricker — who attends a number of bird counts in the region — compiles the statistics and sends them to Bird Studies Canada, which posts the results on their website (http://www.birdscanada.org/index.jsp). The site notes that birds are excellent indicators of how the environment is doing.
The 20th annual Ashcroft-Cache Creek Christmas Bird Count is taking place on Saturday, Dec 21. Anyone interested in joining this day-long adventure can contact Wendy Coomber at wcoomber@telus.net, by phone at (250) 457-9487, or through the Birds of Cache Creek, Ashcroft and Area public Facebook group.
