Science Friday - What Scientists Have Learned From 125 Years Of Bird Counts

Episode Date: January 6, 2025

This winter marks the 125th year of Audubon’s Christmas Bird Count, in which bird nerds across the Western Hemisphere venture outside to record all the birds they see and hear.Scientists use that data to understand how birds are faring, where they’re moving, and what they’re up to when it’s not breeding season. With 125 years under its belt, the Christmas Bird Count is the longest-running community science program in the world.How do scientists use this data? And what have they learned in those 125 years? Ira Flatow talks with Dr. Brooke Bateman, senior director of climate and community science at the National Audubon Society, and Dr. Janet Ng, wildlife biologist at Environment and Climate Change Canada in Regina, Canada.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

The Audubon Christmas Bird Count is the longest running community science program in the world. That information is just so valuable to scientists, and it's just a great way to be a part of a really fun tradition, but also contributing to science and our understanding of birds and their populations. It's Monday, January 6th, and you're listening to Science Friday. I'm SciFri producer Rasha Irides. Audubon just wrapped its 125th Christmas bird count, an annual event in which bird earns across the Western Hemisphere trek outside to record all the birds they see and hear. Scientists use all that data to understand how birds are faring, where they're moving,

and what they're up to when it's not breeding season. So what makes this data so important and what have scientists learned in those 125 years? Here's Ira Flito. That's what we're going to talk about with my guest, Dr. Brooke Bateman, Senior Director of Climate and Community Science at the National Audubon Society in Stony Brook, New York, and Dr. Janet Ng, Wildlife Biologist at Environment and Climate Change Canada in Regina, Canada. Welcome both of you to Science Friday. Thanks for having us.

It's great to be here. Thanks for having us. You're welcome. Brooke, let's take a trip in the Wayback Machine. I mean, how did the bird count start over a century ago? Yeah, it's a pretty cool story. So back in 1900, Frank Chapman decided that the traditional Christmas hunt was not the best idea. And he went and encouraged people in a newsletter called BirdLore to go out and do a Christmas census or go out and count birds instead.

And really was hopeful that folks would take this on board. And a few folks did. So the first year, we had 27 individuals from 25 different locations that decided to count birds instead of go hunting around the Christmas time period. And about how many do you have now? We have over 80,000 volunteers that participate across the entire Western Hemisphere. So it's grown substantially since 1900. Okay, Janet, tell me what you did for the bird count this year. Oh, yeah, thanks for asking.

We've been going out every year to do the Craven Christmas bird count. So that's just a few minutes north of Regina. And we get two areas, two territories to go stake out and go drive and walk around. And, yeah, we took some friends. We packed a lot of snacks. and went looking for birds. This group was a few different biologists packed into a truck, and I have to say it was probably pretty intense.

It was pretty intense. It was like there are nine gray partridges, three o'clock to the east there, and stop the vehicle, pause, everybody take a look. I was the designated scribe, which I don't want to underestimate how important that task is. And so, yeah, I had the little notebook and pencil, and I kept track of what everybody saw.

So, yeah, it was a pretty serious. group, but honestly, it can be anybody who's interested. And that's the beautiful part about Christmas bird counts. It's the opportunity to like see something new, learn something new. And yeah, hang out with some probably very nerdy bird people. Now, I understand that this can get pretty competitive, right? You know, I'd have to say there's probably a little bit more trash talking by text messaging now than there probably was in 1900. And I'd say that's good motivation for, I guess for some of us who, who, who.

work that way. Yeah. Right. And so tell me what the coolest bird you saw this year. Ooh, good question. So we started off strong and we were looking at a sharp-tailed grouse sitting in a field. And then we noticed a bald eagle actually come zoom in and check it out. The sharp-tailed grouse wasn't going to have anything to do with it. And the bald eagle thought better in that moment. But it was still really neat to see. Like two beautiful birds and just a wonderful natural interaction out on a really lovely Saturday. That's cool. And you, Brooke, what was your plan like? I do the Christmas burkeown every year with my daughter. I've been doing it with her since she's three. She's now 10. So we go out, the two of us in our local area, our part of the sector and cover our area. And it's just a fun way to spend the day and get her to recognize and identify the birds. So I always find it as an enjoyable experience. And as Janet said, it's just an opportunity for anybody to join. It doesn't have to be just. season birders. It can be children. It can be newbies. Definitely a lot of opportunities there.

Was there any bird that you were really hoping to see going into your bird count? I think the thing about the Christmas bird count is that you just, it's the opportunity of what you see that particular day. I mean, obviously you want to make sure you're getting the regulars that you see everywhere because we really want to get a good idea of the birds that are in that particular circle over time. But I mean, if there's a rare bird in the area, it's always exciting to try to find it. I'm always happy to try to get the owls. I think for me, owls and the weird winter ducks are my two favorite hits. You can see owls during the day. I mean, you can, but you also, a lot of folks do an owling component of the Christmas bird camp where they actually wake up early

to hear the birds calling. So obviously seeing a bird is a big part of Christmas bird camp, but there's other ways that you can identify birds, including hearing their calls. Can you give me an owl call? Oh, yes, I can. I can. Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all? That's the, that's the Bart Owl. I thought it was here with us in the room. That was wonderful, Dr. Bevan. Thank you. I'm not one of those people that can actually sound like an owl, but I can, I can do the mnemonics. That's good. And Jen Don, I know you're a scientist. Why is this data so important to scientists? Well, we've seen Christmas Burr Count data used in so many studies now. And the importance of this long-term data set, like literally the long-term data. longest in the world, starting from 1900, there's nothing else like it that exists. And so having a long data set over a large geographic area, all of Saskatchewan, all of Canada, United States, that gives us so much data to work with so we can look at species trends over continents, but also regional trends too. What's happening more locally?

There's just a lot of opportunities and people have really used it to its full extent, I think. Or actually, you know what, I think we're not at the full extent yet. There's more to come. Is it helpful that this bird count is done in the winter versus another season? Well, I think it's a good complement to the breeding bird survey, which is a longstanding survey where folks go out and count birds during the breeding summer and spring period. We don't have another count that documents where birds are in the winter. And so I think it's really important for us to understand that the full annual cycle of birds, what's happening in their non-breeding season as well as their breeding season.

So it's really important data set for us to understand and take a pulse of birds in that wintering time period. Janet, do you have any example that you can share why the Christmas bird data is so important? Yeah. And I think like Brooke just makes these really great points because up here in Canada, we have a lot of birds that decide that cold winters are not their thing. And so birds, birds migrate. Lots of birds migrate south to places that are warmer where food is easier and life is easier. So for us, we wave goodbye to a lot of birds in the fall, wish them good luck, and hope to see them in the spring. But we don't often know where they go, how they're doing, or where they end up.

There's a really cool study done about 10 years ago by Scott Wilson, who's also with Environment and Climate Change Canada, who used Christmas bird count. And I don't know if he was surprised by the results. I think the rest of us were surprised by it. Him and his other scientist buddies showed that Western Grebes had actually changed where they spend their winters by over 900 kilometers. And so we had Christmas bird counts in this around the Salish Sea. So that is off the west coast of Canada, United States, around the Washington area, Christmas perk counts for years. And they noticed that Western grebes just plummeted. They went down by 95% in, in those recent years. And so then everybody, of course, was very, very

concerned and wonder what's going on, what's happening with their population. And then meanwhile, people who were doing Christmas birth counts in Northern California were like, has anybody seen what's happening with the Western Greaves? And they saw a 300% increase. And so that paper showed that this species was moving where they were spending their winters by like the stretch of like the span of three states essentially. And what we what we hypothesized that these Western Greaves are doing, so they're probably moving to where the food was better. And so with climate change, we're seeing fish stocks change where they spend time. and how many there are, and that's essentially the biggest food source for Western Grebes.

And so Western Grebes in the Salish Sea decided that it was not working out for them. There's not enough food. And so they went and scouted out an area, and they all ended up on the northern coast of California. Without a continental long-term data set like that, we would have no idea to be able to join these two, apparently separate, but apparently very linked to very connected populations. And we wouldn't know that. Brookie lead to Audubon's climate programs, have you relied on Christmas bird count data before? Yeah, the Christmas bird count data has been a really important tool for us to understand how birds are already responding to climate change.

We actually did a study a couple of years ago led by Sarah Saunders and folks here on our science team, where we showed that winter ducks in the eastern U.S. are actually expanding their range northward because our winters are becoming more mild. And some species are just overwintering and foregoing their traditional migration southward because the conditions are just so much more mild in their breeding grounds. So they're just sticking around. And so we're seeing these shifts. We're seeing these ducks kind of moving northward and leaving their southern part of their range in the winter. We're also seeing that birds are shifting their ranges across the board, across North America,

in terms of climate change. And we see that. We're already seeing the climate change showing up. every day in where these birds are occurring. And does the bird count tell us anything about whether we're losing populations or gaining populations? Yeah. So it is starting to give us some information.

And we also did a study a couple years ago that looked across all bird species that we counted in the Christmas bird count. And we're sort of seeing this change across the board where climate change is really dictating the climate is showing where birds can occur. But within their ranges, changes in habitat have really led to changes in the population. for different species, particularly with our wetland species and our grassland species that have seen dramatic habitat loss. So the information from the Christmas Burr Count is really showing us how global change is

impacting these populations. And we know from a study in 2019 that we've lost 3 billion birds that's nearly one and four birds that no longer exists today because of changes in habitat and climate. So lots of information there, like the Christmas Burr Count has showed us that population. populations are being impacted by the things that are changing in our environment. As somebody who's been doing the same bird count for the last few years, it is a little while that you can see some of those changes. If you're one person doing a bird count in one location, it's almost anecdotal.

That's your story of what you've seen. And there could be a rainy day, a windy day, a cold day. But everything that you see over the years and then compiled it with everybody else's data, that's what tells the big story. And that allows us to pick apart the patterns and really, be able to understand better and forecast what's going to happen with bird populations. After the break, more on connecting with your local birds. I know you've been participating in the bird count over years. Has it made you feel more

connected to your local birds or do you just get tired of counting them, same birds? Never. Never get tired of counting the same birds. In fact, it's been really neat. You get to know your route. You get to know your territory and your Christmas bird. count. And so we had a couple of folks that were new to Christmas bird count with us this year. And, oh, we sounded like veterans, like we knew what we were doing out there. Like, oh, we usually stop here and we listen for a Blue Jay. Of course, none of those birds manifested as we were saying these things. But you do get to know your roots and you get to know the habitats and you have an expectation of what you might find there. It's kind of like doing a nice familiar route. I quite like it.

That's great. And Janet, I know, as you've said, your work is focused on shore birds. and water birds. Do you have any concerns for them as we kick off 2025? Oh, so, well, yeah. So going into 2025, we've got a very, very close eye on shorebirds. As Dr. Bateman mentioned earlier, there was a study that had shown that we are several billion birds shorter than we were a few decades ago, and that's really alarming. A recent report by Environment and Climate Change Canada, the State of Birds of Canada report showed that a couple of groups of birds are in particular decline. So grass-long birds have really suffered from loss of habitat, and so their declines have been extremely steep the last couple of decades.

And shorebirds, unfortunately, have also seen a massive decline in the last few decades and a very extreme decline in the last 10 years. So a lot of the work that we're doing now is really focused on learning more and getting more detail and really digging into what's happening with shorebirds. So that includes birds that might breed in our local wetlands, but also a really really strong emphasis. We're closely looking at birds that breed up in the Arctic in the tundra. The bird count is coming to a close for this season. People listening now are going to say, how do I get involved maybe for next year? What advice do you have? Yeah, so the great thing about the Christmas bird count is it's open to anybody and it's free. And the way that you kind of connect

to a Christmas burrcount is to find your local compiler. And so you can go to Christmas burrcount.org and go to the information there to find the circles near you. So all of our CBCs are 15-mile diameter circles where you can see if it overlaps with where you live and then reach out to that compiler in that area. And I know that Birds Canada that manages the program in Canada also has a website that you can check out your local compiler. So connect with your compiler.

And there's tons of way to join. If you're not able to do a traditional account where you're out walking or driving around, you can also do a feeder watching component where you can watch the birds that come to your bird feeder. So lots of ways to participate. And it's just a really fun way for folks to get involved. And you shouldn't worry that you don't have experience.

You'll get training, right? Yeah, I think that's one of the great things about a tradition like this. There's so many people that partake in the Christmasburg count that folks that are new to it can be paired with a veteran that's been doing it for a really long time. And it's a great way to learn about the birds. So find your local count, get involved with the folks that are doing, it and you can really just learn a lot. Just that first time I went out, I learned a ton from folks

that had been doing it for many years. And is that what it takes just a day? Just a day. It's one morning for your local circle, unless you're going to participate in more than one circle, then it might be multiple days. Oh, do people do that? Yeah. I know quite a few people that do multiple circles. So if you're ambitious, you can contact circles anywhere that you see. You can even travel for them. There's some people that will travel to Latin America to do one of their CBC circles. So lots of opportunities. What does what does the Christmas bird count mean to people? I just, I think the Christmas bird count is just a wonderful way for folks to have a really enjoyable day birding, but also connecting to something much larger than themselves. As I said earlier,

this is a hemispheric program. We have folks counting from Canada down through Latin America. and that information is just so valuable to scientists. And it's just a great way to be a part of a really fun tradition, but also contributing to science and our understanding of birds and their populations. There's people that have been doing the Christmas bird count for over 50 years. I just actually signed a certificate for a compiler that had been doing the compiling role in account for 50 years. And it just, it becomes a community. It becomes a tradition.

People look forward to it every year to doing the count, but also afterwards, there's often a tradition of getting together, having a meal, sharing what birds you saw that day, and finding a way for new folks to get involved and kind of continue that legacy of people that care about birds in one account. So I just think it's become this beautiful tradition that people are just passionate about. They're passionate about the birds in their area and that they see the value in this program. And so people really care a lot about the Christmas bird count. I was going to say that one of the highlights after doing the Christmas bird count is seeing all the data that's been compiled for your area and comparing it between years. It doesn't take a scientist to see differences between years and to wonder why and to ask those kinds of questions.

And so, yeah, seeing your hard-earned fruits of your labor, the data is one of the best parts. Well, good luck with all this data and thank you both for joining me. Thanks, Sarah. Thank you. Dr. Brooke Bateman is the Senior Director of Climate and Community Science at the National Audubon Society based in Stony Brook, New York. Dr. Janet Ng is a wildlife biologist at Environment and Climate Change Canada in Regina Canada. That's it for today's show. Lots of folks help make it happen, including Annie Nero. Jason Rosenberg.

Shoshana Bucksbaum. On tomorrow's episode, what breakthrough technologies to keep your eye on this year? Join us. I'm sci-fire producer, Rasha Auretti. Thanks for listening.