Story and photos by FANG H. LIANG, Pinnacle staff writer
Christmas bird count has long tradition in San Benito County
Hannes Vogel and David Ekdahl, and others like them, rose in the
frost bitten predawn morning, put on their gloves and fleece
jackets, and drove in the darkness for more than two hours from
cities such as Cupertino and Felton, to Pinnacles National Monument
do their annual Audubon Society Christmas Day Bird Count.
Story and photos by FANG H. LIANG, Pinnacle staff writer
Christmas bird count has long tradition in San Benito County
Hannes Vogel and David Ekdahl, and others like them, rose in the frost bitten predawn morning, put on their gloves and fleece jackets, and drove in the darkness for more than two hours from cities such as Cupertino and Felton, to Pinnacles National Monument do their annual Audubon Society Christmas Day Bird Count.
The bird count is a tradition started more than a hundred years ago by an American ornithologist, Frank Chapman, as an alternative to what was known as the Christmas “side hunt.” The side hunt was a winter sport popularized by 19th century sportsmen, in which they competed to see who could get the biggest pile of dead birds by the end of the day.
A hundred years later, the collecting of dead birds has been replaced with a new tradition where men and women are more likely to be armed with just a pair of binoculars around their necks and a notebook – and maybe a 500-page-thick bird guide in their back pocket for the recently initiated.
