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Birders Fan Out To Do Count

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By DAVID SOMMER, The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 31, 2007

ODESSA - Sometimes the paving over of paradise provides a boon for certain bird species.

About 100 killdeer were spotted foraging for insects in a newly-graded area near the old Tampa Bay Executive Airpark off Trinity Boulevard Saturday morning.

Bird-watcher Sid Crawford said the killdeer, with distinctive black rings around their necks, often take advantage of freshly-turned dirt at construction sites.

The Ozona man, sporting a long gray beard, was among about 50 members of the West Pasco Audubon Society who fanned out in a 15-mile circle Saturday as part of the National Audubon Society's nationwide Christmas Bird Count.

Conducted here since the 1970s, the annual count dates to 1900, when a group of bird enthusiasts created an alternative to the traditional Christmas "side hunt."

"We are like hunters except that we use cameras and clipboards" to document sightings, said Ken Tracey, the West Pasco society's president.

Birders, many with expensive binoculars dangling from special shoulder holsters, gathered Saturday at the J.B. Starkey Wilderness Park's main lodge to compare notes and plan the afternoon's spotting forays.

"We like to be at 150 species at lunch," organizer Bill Pranty of Bayonet Point said.

The count stood near that mark as more birders trickled in. Pranty and the others divvied up territories for the afternoon, when they planned to look for elusive species such as the Peregrine falcon, black rail and Wilson's plover that the watchers missed in the morning but had seen on previous days.

Last year, 167 species were spotted. In 2005, the tally was 171.

Dunedin resident Lillian Kenney and her brother, John Kenney, visiting from upstate New York, spotted 71 species between them Saturday morning.

The pair spent the morning patrolling the coastline near Holiday, primarily looking for shore birds.

"I used to live in Pasco, so I keep in contact with the birders here," Lillian Kenney said.

Several of the bird-watchers traveled to participate in this year's Christmas Bird Count.

Steve Tracey said he times his annual Christmas visit from South Carolina so he can take part in the count along with his father, mother and sister. He spent the morning on an air boat counting birds at Warner-Boyce Salt Springs State Park on the Gulf of Mexico.

"It doesn't really disturb the birds," he said of the noisy air boat. "And you can get to a lot of places" that other boats cannot.

Gallus Quigley, a Lee County park ranger, said Saturday's bird count was his fourth this year.

"I wanted to do more counts, but there are only so many days off in a month," Quigley said.

"It's one of those illnesses that have no bad effect on the person who has the disease but affects everyone around them," he said of his birding passion. "Just ask my girlfriend."

She was elsewhere Saturday.

Reporter David Sommer can be reached at (727) 815-1087 or dsommer@tampatrib.com. To see more photos, go to snap.tbo.com/pages/gallery.php?gallery =321618.

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