Times Observer photo by Stacey Gross Mike Toole, left, and Don Watts talk birds.

Around 40 people from around the area participated in 2016’s Christmas Bird Count (CBC) in Warren, said Don Watts, bird count coordinator. He and Mike Toole, who compiles each year’s data as well as participating in the count, would like to see more.

The Christmas Bird Count originated on Christmas Day in 1900, when early officer in the Audubon Society Frank Chapman saw fit to turn the traditional Christmas “side hunt” into a conservation effort instead.

The Christmas side hunt was an annual event during which hunters would compete — heading into the field to basically see who could shoot the most animals, feathered or furred.

“Conservation was in its infancy then,” said Toole, but birders and scientists alike were already becoming alarmed by declining populations of many bird species nationally.

On the first Christmas Bird Count, Chapman was able to get 27 birders to hold 25 counts ranging from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, to Pacific Grove, California. The combined counts tallied around 90 species, according to the Audubon’s website.

Warren has been participating in the now global Christmas Bird Count for 74 years, Toole said.

The official dates for the event run from Dec. 14 through Jan. 5 each year, but Watts said that Warren’s is always the first Saturday within those dates. Jamestown also participates in the count and Watts said that count is always held on the first Sunday within the count dates.

And the Christmas Bird Count data is not just fun and games, said Toole.

“It’s citizen science,” said Watts.

Even the breakdown of the area into zones with zone leaders is one of the serious efforts of birders participating to ensure consistency, which is a cornerstone of the scientific method.

Data from Christmas Bird Counts has been used in legitimate research. From Audubon’s 2014 Climate Change Report to bird count data being cited as one of 26 indicators of climate change in its 2012 report, CBC data represents a fertile pool of information for researchers.

“I wonder why,” said Watts, is something he finds himself asking often as a birder. The same question underlies the entire scientific method. Observations spark questions, questions spark hypotheses, which drive experimentation and eventual theories.

Anyone, stressed both Watts and Toole, can take part in the Christmas Bird Count. Novice to expert, the count is for anyone who knows anything about birds, or would like to. For those not interested in or able to venture into certain field areas specified in the various Warren zones, said Toole, feeder counts are also conducted that day, and added into the year’s statistics.

For Watts, birding is a passion.

As a young hunter he saw a flock of birds above him one day while turkey hunting and was surprised that he’d never seen a bird like them in the woods before.

“I thought I knew all about what was here,” said Watts.

So he immediately went and looked up what he saw and was amazed to learn that the species was one of the most common in the nation.

“How can that be the most common bird,” Watts asked himself, “when I’ve never seen one?”

And like that, Watt’s curiosity was off and running. And while he always kept his binoculars hidden away as well as his interest in birding, lest someone question his manliness, by the end of his careers at both the National Forge and United Refining Company, “I had these big gruff guys coming up to me with feathers, asking me to identify them.”

“It is a curiosity,” said Toole. “It’s a fascination.”

The human mind can’t stand an unsolved puzzle, or a question left unanswered.

“When you see something unique,” said Toole, “something you don’t recognize, it’s exciting to find out” what it was. Another thing Toole loves about birding is being able to have a connection not just with other birders, but with nature. He recalls an instance of calling owls and having the species of owl he was calling in not just show up, but call him back.

“It’s really something,” he said.

For more information on the Christmas Bird Count or to find out how to get involved, contact Don Watts at (814) 723-9125.