Task: Find Feathered Friends

More than 100 years ago, along with roasting chestnuts on an open fire, a bird shoot on Christmas Day was a ritual for hunters.

Called the Side Hunt, sportsmen separated into teams--retrievers and spaniels at their feet--and bagged as many birds as possible.

But in December 1900, ornithologist Frank Chapman inaugurated a new holiday tradition, asking volunteers to count birds instead of shoot them.

Twenty-seven people participated in that first effort, and since then, Christmas Bird Counts have been undertaken yearly.

The 100th annual count has been a massive effort by 50,000 volunteers in North America, Central and South America and the Caribbean. In Orange County, 190 volunteers fanned out from Irvine to Mission Viejo last week, climbing into the Santa Ana Mountains and hiking through regional parks and other areas rich with wildlife to count 167 species.

White pelicans, white-fronted geese and wood ducks were seen at Irvine Park, a female hooded merganser and a ferruginous hawk were sighted at El Toro.

“We saw some nice birds,” said Curtis Johnson, director of the Sea and Sage Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count.

“This time of year is a better time to bird, you see a greater variety in the population because of birds that come here from other parts of the country to winter.”

“We had three different kinds of sapsuckers: yellow-bellied, red-naped and red-breasted.”

Also sighted were birds not supposed to be in Southern California this time of year.

A black-chinned hummingbird, which normally goes to Mexico or Central America for the winter, is still in the area.

“But then, we’re a little skeptical about whether someone actually saw it,’ Johnson said.

What happens to data gathered on all the California towhees, tufted titmouses and white-breasted nuthatches?

Though the Christmas Bird Count is not by any means exact, the information does help researchers analyze broad trends in bird populations.

“We have to have some way of knowing which species are declining, which are increasing, then we can start looking at causes and correct some of the environmental problems causing the decreases,” said Kimball Garrett, ornithology collections manager at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and a noted author of bird books.

Such information has “direct applicability” to various conservation efforts, Kimball said, but its usefulness is not in individual sightings by individual bird-lovers.

“Basically, people go on Christmas Bird Counts because it’s bird-watching and it’s fun,” he said. Bird-watching, however, also has a built-in amount of frustration.

“It gets a little depressing when you see habitat diminishing and more and more mansions, housing tracts and parking lots are going up,” Kimball said.