Six blue jays hopped from branch to branch in a pine tree on Magnolia Avenue near the beach.
Overhead, three crows circled.
Unseen, a cardinal sang a cheery tune.
Why might scientists care about these observations made on a recent Saturday morning in Anna Maria?
Because the numbers alone might raise questions about the strength of a species, changes in habitat and levels of pollution.
Consider how observations helped Rachel Carson, in 1962’s “Silent Spring” — one of the most influential books in the modern environmental movement — demonstrate the disastrous environmental effects of pesticides in the 1950s and 1960s.
A passage in the chapter titled “No Birds Sing” reports a wealth of bird life in a community and then, after several years of spraying DDT on trees, “the town is almost devoid of robins and starlings; chickadees have not been on my shelf for two years, and this year the cardinals are gone, too.”
The chapter also includes an observation from a man whose picture window “used to frame a scene splashed with the red of 40 or 50 cardinals and crowded with other species” but, after pesticide spraying, the man seldom saw more than two birds.
We learn from such observations and scientists learn from such observations, as well as their own studies.
What if I see six blue jays many mornings and then they disappear?
What if the population of three crows grows to 300 crows?
What if I hear one cardinal but I used to hear a dozen?
What if one morning I see an ivory-billed woodpecker and prove the bird is not extinct — or no longer extinct?
With this enthusiasm, I approach the global Great Backyard Bird Count, which will be conducted Feb. 15-18. Birders of all ages and skills participate in the four-day annual happening that I consider a Valentine’s Day event for nature lovers.
Volunteers will count the birds they see for at least 15 minutes on one or more days of the count and then enter their checklists at birdcount.org.
During the 2018 count, birdwatchers from more than 100 countries submitted more than 180,000 bird checklists, reporting a record 6,456 species – more than half the known bird species in the world.
This column was published in The Islander newspaper.
Archives for The Islander are online here.