For most of my life, I have looked forward to December . . . but for a reason different than most. It is the annual Christmas Bird Count season! In recent years, I have really come to look forward to the Matinicus Island Christmas Bird Count, or CBC, coordinated by my friend Jeff Wells. Of course, being on an offshore island only accessible by plane, it is entirely contingent on having a weather window to fly out.

Those of you reading this blog are likely familiar with CBCs. You may have even participated in one or two (or 80!). But how did this annual early-winter bird census come about?

The very first CBC, held in 1900, was offered as an alternative to the annual “Side Hunt” held each Christmas Day. Think about those days; it was still the Wild West of conservation. Birds were killed for the millinery trade to provide feathers for women’s hats. There were virtually no conservation laws and even laxer enforcement. The idea of limits on hunting was laughable. It was in this environment that the Christmas Side Hunt—a festive slaughter of wildlife, primarily birds and mammals—had flourished for decades, with participants blasting away at every living creature they saw (okay, not humans; and hopefully not pets). At the end of the day, whichever team had killed the most animals (presumably) won bragging rights.

The losers were all manner of wildlife. Untold millions of birds and small mammals were shot. The fledgling conservation movement had not yet taken hold (it would be another eight years before passage of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act). It was a daunting task to change the mindset of the era. One person, in particular, though, rose to the challenge. Ornithologist Frank M. Chapman (1864-1945) came up with an alternative: a Christmas Bird Census. His aims were to count birds rather than kill them. Of that initial count, Chapman wrote[i]:

It is not many years ago that sportsmen were accustomed to meet on Christmas Day, ‘choose sides,’ and then, as representative of the two bands resulting, hie them to the fields and woods on the cheerful mission of killing practically everything in fur or feathers that crossed their path—if they could.

These exceptional opportunities for winning the laurels of the chase were termed ‘side hunts,’ and reports of the hundreds of non-game birds which were sometimes slaughtered during a single hunt were often published in our leading sportsmen’s journals, with perhaps a word of editorial commendation for the winning side. We are not certain that the side hunt is wholly a thing of the past, but we feel assured that no reputable sportsman’s journal of today would venture to publish an account of one, unless it were to condemn it; and this very radical change of tone is one of the significant signs of the times.

Now, Bird-Lore proposes a new kind of Christmas side hunt, in the form of a Christmas bird-census, and we hope that all our readers who have the opportunity will aid us in making it a success by spending a portion of Christmas Day with the birds and sending a report of their ‘hunt’ to Bird-Lore before they retire that night. Such reports should be headed by locality, hour of starting and or returning, character of the weather, direction and force of the wind, and the temperature; the latter taken when starting. The birds observed should then be added, following the order in which they are given in the A.O.U.[ii] ‘Check List,” with, if possible, the exact or approximate number of individuals of each species observed.

Promptness in sending these lists to Bird-Lore (at Englewood, N.J.) is urged in order that the best of them may be published in our February number, where they will be not only of interest to other participants in the ‘hunt,’ but will also constitute, in a measure, a census of Christmas bird-life.

During that first CBC conducted on Christmas Day 1900, 27 observers in 25 different locales ranging from New Brunswick to California recorded seeing 2,566 individual birds from 89 species.[iii]

It is worth delving into this Chapman character a bit further. His interest began in earnest in his early adulthood. In 1885, Chapman attended the American Ornithologists’ Union’s third annual meeting and found his calling. In 1886, the young ornithologist spent two afternoons wandering uptown New York City counting birds. Except he wasn’t counting live ones, he was inventorying those feathered parts adorning women’s hats. The carnage he observed were symbols of wealth. According to an article in the Washington Examiner[iv], “in the millinery trade, an ounce of heron plumes was worth twice its weight in gold, about four herons were needed to produce an ounce of feathers, and more than a hundred had to die for the average 30-ounce package. [At least] 1,608 such packages were sold at auction in London during one year alone.”

In addition to starting the Christmas Bird Count, Chapman founded Bird-Lore, the forerunner of Audubon Magazine. He was the first curator of birds at the American Museum of Natural History; he fought for laws to protect wild birds; he helped to save the Everglades; he spent several winters in Florida, Mexico, and Columbia studying birds; and he published numerous books (including early definitive field guides to Columbia and Mexico) and scholarly articles; to name but a few of his numerous achievements.

Since that first count in 1900, CBCs have continued annually and spread around the globe with standardized methodologies. Today, all CBCs are conducted within a single 24-hour day sometime between 14 December and 05 January within a circle of 15 miles (24 km) diameter; anyone can participate regardless of skill or ability. For instance, the 120th CBC, conducted December/January 2020, the last pre-pandemic count, had 81,601 observers in 2,646![v]! This historic record has enabled researchers, conservation biologists, wildlife agencies and other interested individuals to study the long-term health and status of bird populations.

I set off to write about the Matinicus Christmas Bird Count but ended up way down the rabbit hole of CBC history. So let me wrap up with a little about this year’s Matinicus CBC.

On 04 January, Jeff Wells, Mike Fahay, and I flew out the 22 miles (35 km) offshore to Matinicus Island in one of Penobscot Island Air’s 6-seater Cessna Stationair, landing on the gravel airstrip at the north end of the island. The day was cold, starting at 4° F (-16° C), ultimately peaking at about 21° F (-6° C), but the stiff northerly winds blew steadily all day making for sub-zero (F) windchills—good thing for my big, puffy down North Face jacket.

Our winged steed: Penobscot Island Air’s Cessna Stationair.

As we were landing, our first bird of the day, a Bald Eagle, flew over the gravel airstrip. The day’s only Snow Bunting was feeding along the edge of the airstrip. And an Iceland Gull flying past in the distance was identified by Jeff as “Kumlien’s”.

As we ambled toward the southern tip, we continued to rack up birds. Black-capped Chickadees were abundant. White-throated Sparrows were seemingly in every roadside tangle of weeds. The first of 4 Yellow-rumped Warblers was skulking near the Indian Ledge breakwater. Meanwhile, a lone Purple Sandpiper, hunkered down on a floating piece of driftwood in Matinicus Harbor, was surprising in the fact that it was alone—when do you EVER see just 1 Purple Sandpiper. A lone Cedar Waxwing turned into 6, then 19, and suddenly there were 43 of them! Along with 3 Bohemian Waxwings (I do LOVE their musical trill). Shortly after we inadvertently flushed 22 American Black Duck from Old Cove, Jeff heard a call note of a Lincoln’s Sparrow along the edge. We looked and looked for it and finally found the little bugger. A Yellow-bellied Sapsucker was another unusual sighting. As were the 5 Northern Flicker!

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. (photo by Jeff Wells)

Walking a trail through an overgrown field at the south end of the island turned up a number of good birds, starting with a Ruby-crowned Kinglet followed quickly by a Fox Sparrow. At one point, both the kinglet and sparrow were in the same tree!

Fox Sparrow. Not the world’s greatest photo, but good enough for identification purposes.

It was finally time start walking north in order to meet the return flight to the mainland. A Snowy Owl flew across the field, showing us its tail! We may have only had 3 seconds to view it, but it was enough.

By the end of the day, the three of us had spent 7¾ hours walking nearly 8 miles (13 km), tallying 43 species of birds. Mike spends a LOT of time on Matinicus and we met some of his friends who live out there (something like 70 people live on the island year-round). We met old friends Paul and Eva who both seem to epitomize island life—meaning they pretty much do anything and everything that needs to be done. And we met the four kids who live on the island, as well as their school teacher and his wife (two of the students were theirs).

As the old saying goes, a bad day of birding is better than a good day in the office. And any day birding on Matinicus Island is a GREAT day!

Afterthought. Here’s our complete list of birds we saw during this year’s Matinicus Island Christmas Bird Count[vi]:

2 Mallard

24 American Black Duck

27 Common Eider

22 Black Scoter

62 Long-tailed Duck

4 Bufflehead

5 Common Goldeneye

9 Red-breasted Merganser

9 Mourning Dove

4 Purple Sandpiper

11 Black Guillemot

1 Black-legged Kittiwake

85 Herring Gull

1 Iceland Gull

3 Great Black-backed Gull

7 Common Loon

6 Great Cormorant

5 Bald Eagle

1 Snowy Owl

1 Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

3 Downy Woodpecker

5 Northern Flicker

5 Blue Jay

32 American Crow

2 Common Raven

59 Black-capped Chickadee

1 Ruby-crowned Kinglet

4 Golden-crowned Kinglet

8 Red-breasted Nuthatch

2 White-breasted Nuthatch

19 European Starling

16 American Robin

3 Bohemian Waxwing

43 Cedar Waxwing

1 Snow Bunting

1 American Tree Sparrow

1 Fox Sparrow

3 Dark-eyed Junco

22 White-throated Sparrow

7 Song Sparrow

1 Lincoln’s Sparrow

4 Yellow-rumped Warbler

5 Northern Cardinal

[i] Chapman, Frank M., ed. (1900). ‘A Christmas bird-census.’ Bird-Lore. 2(6): 192.

[ii] A.O.U. was the American Ornithologists’ Union, which was supplanted by the American Ornithological Society in 2016. Today, the AOS is the world’s largest professional ornithological organization.

[iii] Chapman, Frank M., ed. (1901). ‘The Christmas Bird Census.’ Bird-Lore. 3(1): 29-33.

[iv] Irmscher, Christoph. (30 November 2016). ‘The birdman of America.’ Washington Examiner. Available on-line at https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/weekly-standard/the-birdman-of-america-2005590; accessed 13 January 2022.

[v] LeBaron, Geoff. (2020). ‘120th Christmas Bird Count summary.’ Available on-line at https://www.audubon.org/news/120th-christmas-bird-count-summary; accessed 14 January 2022.

[vi] To see the complete eBird report, browse https://ebird.org/atlasme/checklist/S100173325.

Matinicus Island Christmas Bird Count and a CBC history

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