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A Townsend Solitaire - the first ever recorded on Kodiak Island - was spotted recently in the Wooldand Acres, Mill Bay area. Photo by Rich MacIntosh
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The annual
winter bird counts are starting up in just more than a week, but bird lovers
can get a sneak peak Friday night at the Audubon Society's meeting.
There birder Rich MacIntosh will present a slide show featuring winter birds of
Kodiak. It'll also be an opportunity to get signed up to help with the two
annual bird counts - the Kodiak count on December 18th and the
Kalsin Bay and Chiniak count on January 2nd.
The Audubon Society meeting and
MacIntosh's presentation on the winter birds of Kodiak starts at 6:30Friday
night at Kodiak College.
Winter - or
Christmas - bird counts are coordinated nationwide by the National
Audubon
Society. They helps provide a snapshot of bird populations, distribution
and
migration. In many communities, participants gather together the morning
of the
count and are then split up into groups on the spot. MacIntosh says it's
done
differently in Kodiak, where the various groups are arranged prior to
counting
day:
-- (Birding 1 :32
sec "We
have two vessels ... all different kinds of effort.")
Another
category of bird-counters are those who observe bird feeders, oftentimes
from
the comfort of their own livingrooms:
-- (Birding 2 22
sec "We're
always looking for ... feeders the merrier.")
MacIntosh
said there seems to be a dearth of backyard birds this year, so he'd
like to
have as many counted as possible. He also said there are fewer
berry-eating
birds.
-- (Birding 3 32
sec "Some
of those birds are American ... week or so.")
We have a
picture of the Townsend Solitaire, taken by MacIntosh, on our website,
KMXT dot
org.
-- (Birding 4 31
sec "It's
a bird that breeds ... ring around the eye.")
The Kodiak
bird count coming up next week will be conducted in a 15-mile radius
around the
city, while the January 2nd Kalsin-Chiniak count covers those
areas
and Pasagshak.
I'm Jay
Barrett
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