Bird survey held in South County

Strange facts about birds reside in the minds of amateur ornithologists: An old toy itself, the toy kite was actually named after the bird, Michelle Swartout said, after spoting a white tailed kite perched on a fence post on a stretch of Department of Fish and Game east of Cottonwood noted as the mouth of the Cottonwood Creek Wildlife Area.

Braving a frosty Dec. 26 morning to carry out the annual Christmas bird count, Swartout and about eleven other members of the local Audubon Society chapter fanned out in a 15-mile area around Anderson split into seven regions, according to member Rob Santry.

Swartout, 40, has been an active bird watcher for 20 years, she said. For the region east of Cottonwood, she identified the birds while fellow birder Kai Kong, 60, kept score of identified birds on a checklist.

After spooking a barn owl from the rafters of an abandoned barn, the two spotted a variety of birds, including spotted towey, song sparrow, and others. They counted every sighting.

"A dozen starling, four ring neck ducks," Swartout said, citing birds as the two strode down a path near a pond.

"Is that a repeat on the Cormorant?" asked Kong, not wanting to duplicate a bird sighting.

Kong, formerly from Salinas, said he got interested in bird watching when an expert he was with spotted a great horned owl where Kong just saw a fence post.

"You don't look at posts and dead branches the same," Kong said of getting into the bird watching hobby. "(The owl) didn't move for an hour, it sat in the same position."

In order not to recount birds while making a three-mile circuit hike, Swartout said some birds, like song sparrows, don't tend to move from certain areas, whereas other birds, like hawks or waterfowl, are noted including the direction they came from.

Each area on the hike was counted once, Swartout said, adding that the course taken was almost identical to last year's. However, last year's bird count was much higher, she added, noting a pond's water level was low in comparison.

Swartout identified birds from an impressive distance, clarifying a dozen robins from what, to a novice, appeared to be 12 small birds.

"(I've been) doing it for so long. You get to know their shape and flight patterns," she said.

To illustrate, she pointed out the woodpeckers, which have an "undulating flightpath."

The groups planned to meet back in Anderson at Luigi's Pizza at 4 p.m. after eight hours of birding watching. For more information on the the local chapter of the Audubon Society, see their Web site at www.wintuaudubon.org.