I apologize for being a little late in getting into the CBC
discussion. I have been the coordinator for the Eugene Christmas Bird Count
(ECBC) for 12 years and have gone on close to 40 ECBCs. This year was
the 75th ECBC and to celebrate this milestone, the sponsor of the ECBC,
Lane County Audubon Society, had small "lapel" pins made for all
participants, home counters, helpers and past participants. We always have
a big Chili Feed at the end of the day which attracts around 100 birders.
The vegetarian chili is home made by Allison Mickel who makes 10 gallons of
chili! We also had two large cakes for dessert decorated like the lapel
pin.
We have our circle divided into 27 Areas and each Area has an expert
birder as the Team Leader. The leaders assemble their teams and I
supplement the teams with people who contact me wanting to go on the Count.
Each year we have 30 to 40 new people wanting to go on the Count. Some
decide to be Home Counters, some show up for one year, some never show even
after saying they will, some come back for several years and some keep
coming until death! This year we had 130 people in the field and 111 Home
Counters. Our goals include using the ECBC as a means to get more people
interested in birds and to have fun. Since each team has an expert
birdwatcher as the leader and usually two or three more good birders on the
team, new bird watchers can learn about birds while meeting other bird
watchers and the team effort in finding birds is still accomplished. This
year we had 131 species on Count Day and 10 during Count Week. Ten CW
species is an unusually large number. Dan Gleason will be sending a
complete analysis of our Count to OBOL soon.
Dick Lamster
maeveanddick@xxxxx
P.S. If you have participated in a past ECBC and would like a 75th
Anniversary pin, send me your name and address and I will get one to you.
