At the edge of the gravel road on Saturday, Gloria Vollmers paused and held up her hand, signaling to her husband to stop and listen.
“Thud, thud, thud.” The faint sound was unmistakable — a woodpecker mining a tree for insects.
The couple waited, watching the trees for movement. During the Audubon Christmas Bird Count, every species mattered, no matter how common.
Vollmers’ husband, Paul Markson, called out, identifying Maine’s smallest type of woodpecker as it emerged from the trees and soared down Kirkland Road in Old Town. They tallied the bird on their checklist and continued on, scouring their assigned area for all things feathered.
A holiday tradition for many bird enthusiasts, the Audubon Christmas Bird Count is the nation’s longest-running community science bird project, dating back more than 100 years. During the count — which is held for three weeks around Christmas each year — birders conduct organized bird surveys throughout the country, then submit the data to the National Audubon Society, which uses the information to pinpoint trends in bird populations and ranges. The society also provides the data online for anyone who’d like to use it.
The count takes place during the holiday season because it was originally created as an alternative to what was known as the Christmas “Side Hunt,” a tradition in which people would compete to shoot birds and other animals, often before or after enjoying Christmas dinner. Popular before the turn of the 20th century, this event had a simple objective. Whoever brought home the most kills was the winner.
Concerned about the rapidly declining bird populations at the time, ornithologist Frank M. Chapman proposed a new holiday tradition — a “Christmas Bird Census” — in December of 1900. That year, 27 birders conducted bird counts, with their locations ranging from Toronto, Ontario, to Pacific Grove, California.
“They said, let’s do the same thing, but instead of shooting the birds, let’s just go out and count them,” Markson said. “And a lot of that had to do with the fact that binoculars suddenly became affordable to the common man.”
Since then, the event has grown steadily. Last year, an all-time high of 76,669 volunteers searched for and tallied birds for the annual count, with data streaming in from throughout the United States, Canada, Latin America, the Caribbean and the Pacific Islands.
“I think gathering the data is important so we can look back and see what’s happening to birds in Maine — and around the country,” said Rad Mayfield, a science teacher at Old Town High School who started participating in the Christmas bird count when he was around 5 years old growing up in Tennessee.
“Things are changing. There are birds here in Maine now that weren’t here 15 years ago,” Mayfield said.
When combined with other surveys such as the Breeding Bird Survey, the Christmas count provides a picture of how the continent’s bird populations have changed over the past hundred years. This long-term data informs strategies to protect birds and their habitats, according to the National Audubon Society. It can also help identify environmental issues, such as the effects of chemicals, notably DDT, a pesticide that nearly wiped out the country’s bald eagle population after World War II.
In addition to providing a crucial set of data for environmentalists, the annual survey has become a social tradition in which experienced birders gather and often welcome new birders into the fold.
“This year we have a lot more people participating, which is great,” said Gudrun Keszocze, naturalist of Hirundo Wildlife Refuge in Old Town and Alton.
This year’s count runs from Dec. 14 through Jan. 5. During that time, participants select one day to survey their specific area — a circle that is 15 miles in diameter — together. For the Old Town-Orono circle, that day was Dec. 15.
To kick the count off, Keszocze invited volunteers to gather at Dysart’s in Old Town for breakfast and to strategize.
Among the participants were Steve Heiny and his 13-year-old son, Will, who became hooked on birding a few years ago after watching the PBS “DUCKumentary” series. The family recently moved to Maine from Michigan, and this year was their second time participating in the Christmas bird count — and their first time participating in Maine.
“We’ve never lived so close to the ocean before,” Steve Heiny said. “We saw a long-tailed duck the other day. And eiders for us are kind of new — and black-backed gulls.”
“When I don’t have anything else to read at night, I’ll go through bird guidebooks,” Will Heiny said, adding that he likes everything about birding, from the physical act of searching for birds to the nitty gritty work of identifying each species.
For the Old Town count, he and his father teamed up Mayfield. Pairing up newcomers and veteran bird counters is common. It’s a way to ensure that people don’t get lost, and that they properly identify the birds they see.
“Every year or two, we get an unusual or rare bird,” Markson said. ”One year we got an orange-crowned warbler. This gentleman [in the area] fed that thing mealworms and anything he could for two weeks so it’d stay around so on the morning of the count, he could count it.”
The count can become quite competitive, said Markson, who has slept with his window open on the night before the count, just in case an owl called out in the early morning.
“Inland winter birding in Maine can be grim,” he said, “not only because of the cold, but because of just the lack of variety of species.”
On Saturday, the Old Town bird counters carried a checklist of more than 60 species of birds, but on a good year, only about 30 of those species are spotted in that area, Markson said. It’s certainly not the most exciting time of year to bird in Maine, but it’s an opportunity to get outside, breathe some fresh air and appreciate what wildlife does stick around to weather the state’s long winter.
For Markson and Vollmers, those birds included the downy woodpecker, as well as blue jays raiding a birdfeeder, plenty of chickadee and crows, and a bald eagle soaring high above the trees.