Bird-watchers, it’s time to do backyard tally

It’s bird-counting time again. The four-day Great Backyard Bird Count begins Friday. Beginners as well as experienced bird-watchers are asked to spend at least 15 minutes Friday through Feb. 16 tallying the individual birds and species that they see.

The counting can be done from backyards, neighborhood parks, high-rise balconies or anywhere else that one can see birds. Then report the findings at www.birdcount.org. Other details about the count —- including bird-identification tips —- also can be found there.

Wildlife biologist Todd Schneider of Georgia’s Wildlife Resources Division said that scientists glean valuable data about bird conservation from the count, which is sponsored by the Audubon Society and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. But perhaps the greatest benefit, he said, is “the educational value” —- raising public awareness of birds.

Last year, Georgia ranked eighth nationwide in the number of count reports (3,135) submitted and fifth in the number of species (221) tallied. Altogether, Georgia watchers logged about 235,770 birds. Savannah ranked second nationwide in the number of species (166) seen per city.

For all of North America, some 9.8 million birds and 635 species were reported via 85,725 individual reports. The species most frequently reported? The northern cardinal.

Snake tracking

We were in South Georgia the other day trying to keep up with C.J. the snake-sniffing dog.

A 6-year-old chocolate Lab, C.J. is trained to sniff out Eastern indigo snakes, once common in the longleaf pine and sandhill regions of Georgia, Alabama and Florida —- but now on the federal endangered species list because, in large part, of decadeslong destruction of its natural habitats from agriculture, development and other causes.

The nonvenomous indigo snake is the largest snake native to the United States —- a stocky, glossy blue-black creature that can grow more than 8 feet long. It won’t bite people, but it will devour a rattlesnake.

The snake is prized among collectors, another reason for its plummeting numbers.

C.J.’s snake-detecting talent has become a valuable tool in the year-old Orianne Project, an initiative to protect the indigo snake. When C.J. finds an indigo, researchers give the snake an identification name and number, weigh and measure it, and determine its sex. Then, they tag it with an implanted computer chip before releasing it back into the wild.

The effort helps researchers determine the status and distribution of the indigo snake populations and what measures, such as land protection, should be undertaken to protect the creatures.

In his snake-sniffing forays, C.J. aims his nose at the burrows of another reptile, the gopher tortoise, a footlong creature that digs its holes several feet deep and as long as 25 feet in dry, sandy soil throughout South Georgia. Indigo snakes are heavily reliant on the tortoise burrows for nesting and refuge from predators and adverse weather. Gopher tortoise numbers themselves, however, are declining in Georgia, mostly because of habitat destruction.

The tortoise burrows can be easily spotted in the woods by the large mounds of sand brought up when the animals dig their holes. Exactly which burrow harbors an indigo snake, however, is nearly impossible to tell simply by looking at it.

“You can walk many miles in a day and not find a single indigo snake,” said Dirk Stevenson, field ecologist with the Orianne Project.

That’s where C.J. becomes useful: With his talented nose, he can help save the researchers valuable time.

Researchers can confirm that C.J. has found an indigo snake by running a tiny camera into the burrow. If a snake is present, a trap can be set to capture it when it crawls out.

Using a trained dog for such work is “novel science,” said Stevenson, who noted that dogs also have been trained to sniff out other species —- even whales in the ocean. C.J. also has been trained to track down bats and spider monkeys in Nicaragua.

Project Orianne (named for its founder’s daughter, who asked her father to help the snakes) is closely allied with the Nature Conservancy, which manages several preserves that harbor the creatures.

We were at one of them —- Broxton Rocks Preserve in Coffee County —- on a recent warm winter day as C.J. employed his snake-sniffing skills. He found no indigo snakes after about an hour’s search, so we moved on to the Orianne Project’s Mopani Preserve in Telfair County. After only a few minutes, C.J. came across a 7-foot indigo snake slithering through the fallen leaves.

His handler, field biologist Kara Ravenscroft, gently picked up the snake, draped it across her shoulders and told C.J. he did a good job.

In the sky

The moon will be full Monday. Some native people call February’s full moon the “Raccoon Moon,” said David Dundee, an astronomer with the Tellus Northwest Georgia Science Museum. Mercury and Mars are low in the east just before sunrise. Venus shines brightly in the west just after sunset and sets in the west about three hours later. Jupiter sets in the west just after dark. Saturn rises out of the east about 9 p.m.

seabrk@comcast.net