Plan Your Weekend: Join the Annual Bird Count

Posted in Wildlife on December 11 2009, by Plant Talk

Debbie Becker leads a free bird walk at the Garden every Saturday from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. beginning at the Reflecting Pool in the Leon Levy Visitor Center.

It’s that time of year again, when all the deciduous leaves have fallen and the bare tree limbs leave exposed the birds of the Forest. As you walk the Forest path you are reminded of the Native Americans who used the Forest as hunting grounds—along the trail by the Bronx River you will even pass the Bear Den, a cave believed to have been used by Native Americans while hunting.

One of the most elusive figures in the NYBG Forest is the great horned owl, a large bird with tuft-like ears, cat-like eyes, and sharp claws. It is a monster of a bird, and it is the most sought-after species on our weekly walk.

Native Americans believed their deceased loved ones’ souls passed into the bodies of great horned owls. The owl was sacred to them and never hunted. Today we still hold the owl in reverence. It is a majestic, elusive creature that conceals itself in conifers during the day and hunts at night.

We’ll likely see this bird during our annual “unofficial” Christmas Bird Count tomorrow, in which we document the numbers of species and individual birds we see from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. (The official Christmas Bird Count of the National Audubon Society, the 86th Bronx-Westchester Count, which includes the Botanical Garden, is on Sunday, December 27. Audubon conducts other counts over a three-week period all over North America and beyond.)

I send results of our own simpler count to the NYSBirds-L@cornell.ed listserv so interested others can see what we’ve spotted. The No. 1 bird everyone wants on their list is the great horned owl. So our count will start off on the Forest trail, near the Bear Den. We will wind around the trail, and when we come to the holy ground of the great horned owl we will raise our binoculars and try to see the revered creature so that we may add it to our list.

Other birds we hope to see that day include: belted kingfisher, great blue heron, wood duck, gadwall, hooded merganser, yellow bellied sapsucker, red bellied woodpecker, brown creeper, winter wren, swamp sparrow, red-tailed hawk, goshawk, Coopers hawk, and if we are lucky, saw whet owl and bald eagle.

Come join us tomorrow or any Saturday for a walk in the woods, meadow, and field searching and counting the birds of The New York Botanical Garden.