How Many Birders Are Out There?

   In A brief History of American Birding author Scott Weidendsaul asks, “Who are we, we birdwatchers and birders?  We Audubon types, wanderers with a purpose through forests and swamps?”

   How many are we today?  Weidensaul quotes one survey that puts the number of Americans who watch birds at 46 million, another at 67.8 million, inflated numbers he describes as “almost certainly bogus, given that such surveys count as a birder anyone who tosses sunflower seeds for the Juncos.”

   “If you look at just those who can identify more than 20 species of birds, however—itself a pretty generous definition of birder—that figure drops to just 6 million, and those able to ID one hundred species number a few hundred thousand at best.”

Kirkwood Birder Comes Within One Bird of Tying State Record

By Bob Lewis

   All records are meant to be broken but many thought Tim Barksdale’s record of seeing 314 Missouri species in one year might stand forever.  And it still hasn’t been broken.

   But Joe Eades of Kirkwood gave it a good try last year when he identified 313 species, only one bird short of Tim’s record.

   Joe’s final bird of the year was on December 31^st when he saw a Prairie Falcon at Lake Contrary in the northwest part of the state. 

   Meanwhile, other Missouri birders were fanning out to try and find more species for Joe to see.  A possible Snowy Owl was not re-found at Eagle Bluffs near Columbia while other birders were searching the Riverlands area for Long-tailed Ducks or other possible species.

   Tim Barksdale had set his record before leaving the state in the 1990s.  He was well-known to early East Ozarks Audubon birders as he helped them get started in field identification of birds.

   Tim has become a professional bird photographer and worked one winter trying to find the Ivory-billed Woodpecker in Arkansas.

   Brad Jacobs of the Conservation Department also had his biggest year in Missouri birding with 293 species. 

   “There is something about trying to build a big list over the year that forces one to learn a lot about birds and habitat and bird behavior,” he said.

   Steve Dilks reached 281 species in 1997 while I had a total of 274 earlier in the 90s. Bill Reeves has never “chased” a big year list but once had 249 without trying.

   Joe Eades summed up his year saying, “One shy of tying the record.  I can’t feel bad because I gave it all I had.”

When Sue Hasse noticed the dead bird on her driveway she had no idea what a rare bird she had found.

   The previous weekend she had seen Karen Adams show a dead Sharp-shinned Hawk that was still clutching a dead Starling in its talons.  The same day Bob Lewis had brought an injured Barred Owl by the bird identification class while on his way to take the bird to World Bird Sanctuary for possible treatment (the wing was broken in an area too close to the “elbow” to be treated and so the bird had to be euthanized).

   So Sue decided she should take the pretty gray, black and white bird to the January Audubon meeting which was to be held that same night.

   She put the bird on a display table and waited for others to notice it.

   Wow! Within a few minutes some senior birders descended on the table and were amazed that they were seeing a very rare Northern Shrike

 This bird is related to the Loggerhead Shrike which does occur in this area. But the Northern Shrike is rarely seen in Missouri, especially south of the Missouri River.

   Shrikes are sometimes called “Butcher Birds” because they feed on small song birds, mammals and insects.  They often “impale” their prey on thorns or barbed wire to “cure” before eating.

   Northern Shrikes are breeders of the boreal forests from Labrador and Quebec to western Alaska.  This species is most often observed when it moves out of its northern haunts during winter to southern Canada and northern United States where prey may be more available.

   Because it breeds in remote northern regions and is generally rare in the United States, much less is known about it than its cousin, the Loggerhead Shrike.

   Bill Reeves, Karen Adams, Jenny Gunn and Bob Lewis huddled to agree on the identification of the bird.

   The picture and description of the bird was posted on the MoBirds e-mail list-serve that same night and by morning the Missouri Rare Birds Committee of the Audubon Society of Missouri had requested that the specimen be donated to the University of Kansas Ornithology laboratory.

   This lab is operated under the supervision of Mark Robbins who also co-authored the book Birds of Missouri with Dr. David Easterla.

   Robbins says that an isotope analysis may reveal how far north this bird came from. 

   On Friday morning following the Audubon meeting Sue Hasse had not disposed of the bird carcass and so it was placed in a freezer carton and stored at the home of Bill and Debbie Reeves until it can be picked up by Mark Robbins some time in April.

   This winter there has been an unusual incursion of Winter Shrikes into Missouri, so unusual that Joe Eades is preparing an article on the matter for the Spring issue of Bluebird, the newsletter magazine of Audubon Society of Missouri.