As the peak of the spring nesting season approaches, the most comprehensive bird count of the year, the Breeding Bird Survey, is getting under way in Georgia and the rest of the United States and Canada.
Started in 1966 by the U.S. Geological Survey and the Canadian Wildlife Service, the annual survey keeps track of more than 400 bird species that nest in North America. From the results, biologists determine if a species is declining, increasing or holding steady. A steady decline -- as is occurring among several of Georgia’s birds -- could be cause for alarm about the survival of the creatures.
To tally the birds, volunteers drive along established road routes. Each route is 24.5 miles long and contains 50 stops located at half-mile intervals. At each stop, volunteers spend three minutes counting every bird seen or heard.
Continentwide, some 3,300 routes cover dozens of habitats -- swamps, fields, forests, mountain slopes, marshes -- where birds nest. Georgia has nearly 100 routes across the state.
Georgia’s survey got under way in mid-May and will continue through mid-June, the height of the breeding season for most of the 180 or so species that nest at least somewhere in the state. (Some birds, such as bald eagles and great horned owls, nest during the winter.)
The volunteers doing the counts are some of Georgia's most skilled birders. They must be able, for instance, to readily identify a bird by sight and song. Since some habitats may harbor more than 60 species, volunteers must be familiar with dozens of individual bird songs.
“There are only a very few birders in the state who have such skills,” said Todd Schneider, a state Department of Natural Resources ornithologist. Even veteran birders may have difficulty distinguishing the songs and calls of some similar-sounding species, Schneider noted.
In 2010, he and several other Georgia ornithologists published their analyses from nearly four decades of surveys in a volume called "The Breeding Bird Atlas of Georgia." Published by the University of Georgia Press, the remarkable 520-page book ($64.95) provides color pictures and a wealth of information about each bird -- habitat, life history, distribution, population trends, interactions with humans, diets and threats facing it.
According to the atlas, some of Georgia's most rapidly diminishing groups of birds are those that inhabit grasslands (bobwhite quail, loggerhead shrike and Bachman‘s sparrow) and those that prefer scrubby shrub areas (painted bunting, prairie warbler, yellow-breasted chat, field sparrow and Eastern towhee).
A major reason for their declines is habitat loss due to development.
In the sky: The moon will be first quarter on Monday, rising out of the east around lunchtime and setting in the west around midnight, said David Dundee, Tellus Science Museum astronomer. Mercury is low in the east just before dawn. Venus is very low in the west just after dark. Mars rises out of the east at dusk and will appear near the moon on Monday night. Saturn rises out of the east just after sunset.
