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OUTDOORS: Birders try to identify 100 different species in 24 hours
By TRAVIS BARRETT
Staff Writer Kennebec Journal & Morning Sentinel 05/24/2008

By TRAVIS BARRETT

Outdoors Writer

BOOTHBAY — The car bumbles along a dirt road which turns into nothing more than a wide hiking trail a few hundred yards back. Deep in the middle of the night, it squeaks to a stop in a clearing surrounded by gigantic pine trees.

Three of us step out and turn pirouettes, like something out of a slow-motion scene in a feature film — spinning in our own directions, our eyes scanning the treetops that can barely be seen. It is 3:30 in the morning, and my eyes are foggy and my motor skills are sluggish at best. Overhead I make out the silhouette of a giant bird against the dark canvas of the sky, wings spread wide, as it glides over the clearing. I look to the others, wondering if I’m really seeing what I think I’m seeing: a bard owl swooping over us for a closer view. Their eyes light up, and I know I haven’t imagined this bird’s presence just a few yards overhead. Suddenly, when I was sure I would fall asleep on my feet just an hour earlier, my adrenaline is pumping and my senses spring to life. I hear every leaf as it’s ruffled by the breeze, every twitch in the branches.

Jeff Wells, a celebrated ornithologist from Gardiner, hoots out next to me, and soon there are the battling calls of bard owls, one directly in front of us — on the other side of the rocky trail we drove across — and the other somewhere to the left.

And then there’s the crash, one that causes us to nearly jump out of our hiking shoes. It’s one of the owls breaking off the weak limb it was perched on. Not only, then, were the owls wary of one another’s presence — they were also wary of our intrusion and the flashlight we were pointing in their direction.

“They’re basically year-round residents,” Wells says of bard owls, which nest in large holes in the sides of trees. “They don’t migrate normally, so they hold territories that they defend most of the year — and they are most strident in the spring breeding season.

“Those tree cavities can be hot commodities, and they can be quite territorial against each other. And of course, they’re so loud that you can hear them for a great distance.”

As intriguing as it was to listen to them chatter amongst themselves, there was no time to soak it all in. In mere minutes we were back in the car, and Nancy Bither had her checklist at the ready, where she crossed of yet another owl.

The encounter with the owls may have proven a spectacular experience for a novice birder like myself, but all it really represented — quite literally — was just one out of 100 experiences like it. For Wells and Bither, it was part of a birding “marathon” as they set out to identify 100 different bird species in a 24-hour span.

Not for beginners

The birding marathon is not for the person new to the sport of birding. In most cases, the birds are never actually seen — even during the daylight hours — as they are identified in rapid-fire form simply from the unique sounds of their calls.

Where more traditional bird-watching is about going into a remote location, settling in for an hour or two and seeing what’s there to be seen through binoculars, a marathon is about quickly identifying as many species as possible.

“That’s a different level of focus,” Wells said. “When you’re out trying to see whatever you see or you have beginners with you you’re trying to show, you look at whatever shows itself and can be easily seen. You’ll show some of the field marks, describe the sound and maybe how to tell it apart from other things. “Even on this (marathon), we could have done some of that. But in general, if I’m leading a beginner or intermediate bird walk, I might not be looking for a particular species. I might not even tell people all the birds I identify. People would have no idea that there might be twice as many birds as we’ve actually seen.”

On Saturday, Wells and Bither were out to find the 100 different species as a way to raise awareness of the birding potential in the various properties maintained by the Boothbay Area Land Trust. Rain and turbulent weather along the nation’s entire East coast hurt bird migration efforts, thus limiting the number of birds seen.

Still, there were bald eagles and wild turkeys, sparrows and warblers, ducks and geese. There was even a bufflehead and a mockingbird, rare finds for this time of year on Maine’s coast.

After about 21 hours, the pair called it quits — just one species shy of their intended 100.

For Wells, who spent his childhood years in Edgecomb, two things struck him during the marathon.

“First, we found a lot of birds in a very small area, even on what was not the best migration day,” he said, noting that efforts were concentrated in a rectangle measuring approximately 8-by-4-miles. “There were some interesting distributional patterns there, like that there weren’t any house wrens around — which are common just 15 to 20 miles further north.

“The other thing, for me, was seeing how much development was happening down there. There are three times as many (houses) as there used to be, crowding up against some of the preserves. To get out on the land and see these things, that struck me a little more than I had expected.”

Competitive nature

It was just past 1 a.m. when Jeff Wells made the announcement.

“What do we have so far?” he asked aloud. “Seven species? That’s not bad for the first hour.”

I checked my watch — having a hard time believing I’d been marathoning for just over an hour. I thought for sure I wouldn’t make it through the night without nodding off.

I stood up, pacing silently on the deck at Nancy Bither’s house, trying to keep myself awake. Even coffee wasn’t working.

Wells is aware that most people don’t see an outdoors pursuit like birding as a competitive venture, but once he straps on the binoculars and slips into his rubber boots, it’s game-on.

“People enjoy certain kinds of sports for purity’s sake,” Wells said. “I enjoy being able to press my skills, as esoteric as they are, to the limit. There’s not much call for that in everyday life.”

It seems that it takes Wells just fractions of a second to identify a bird by its song. A couple of years ago, he last competed in the World Series of Birding in Cape May, N.J., where he and his teammates identified almost 200 different species in 24 hours.

It’s all done on the honor system, but planning a bird marathon to find as many species as possible is serious business. Too long spent in one location may mean missing out on species in another spot.

Though the spots don’t seem to hinder Wells at all. Wherever he is, he hears birds calling him.

“I’m at my son’s T-Ball game, and I can’t help but focus on all the sounds I hear. I’m trying to focus on his game, which I am, but it can be difficult,” said Wells, who likes the idea of a birding competition. “If you’re good any sport or activity, having chance to flex those skills is enjoyable. I enjoy that part of it.”

Travis Barrett — 621-5648

tbarrett@centralmaine.com

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