It’s around 9 a.m. and just 20 degrees Fahrenheit. The frozen ground crunches beneath the weight of my steps and the fallen leaves that cover the trail rustle as I hike further into the woods. Walking down one of Miami University’s many nature trails, I had come here to bird watch, but soon discover this entails much more listening than watching.
According to Marlene Hoffman, president of Audubon Miami Valley, autumn is one of the harder seasons to bird watch. However, the upside to cold weather bird searches is that the birds you do come across are Oxford’s true locals. Springtime, considered to be the best period to bird watch for both abundance and variation, is also a time when out-of-towners are here — migratory birds.
For this very reason, the National Audubon Society conducts the Christmas Bird Count “because you want to get your indigenous birds,” said Hoffman. Each chapter, such as Audubon Miami Valley, is assigned a specific day some time between Dec. 14 and Jan. 5, with the goal to spot, identify and record the birds participants see. According to the National Audubon Society’s website, the Audubon Annual Christmas Bird Count is “the nation’s longest-running community science bird project.”
The colder months are also high time to hang up your bird feeders. Birds like sunflower seeds, said Hoffman, and suet cakes help birds sustain their energy as low temperatures begin to roost. Planting native trees like hackberry helps, too. Birds can feed off berries in the winter, and you can diminish a food desert, which “for a bird, is a lawn grass,” said Hoffman.
Although supplying food makes for a great way to start bird watching right from your window, visually identifying birds can be a challenge for anyone, not just the rookie birder.
“So many birds look alike,” said Hoffman. Instead, listen.
Rather than arm myself with a bird book, it is the Merlin app that I rely on. A project of Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the app can identify birds in real time based on the bird calls you record. It is in fact wizardry as the name suggests, and according to Hoffman, Merlin “has just revolutionized birding for people. I think it’s gotten so many more people interested in birding.”
But in the woods, I only hear a few disembodied chirps. After about 15 minutes, split between walking a few paces, and then stopping to listen for a faint bird call I thought I just heard, I make it slightly deeper into the woods.
And I wait. And I strain to listen. And I entertain the idea that maybe the birds are making a collective effort to stay silent just so they could get a good laugh watching as I foolishly start to freeze.
My thoughts are interrupted as there is a sudden cacophony of calls, at least in comparison to the prior silence. I smile as I look to see Merlin identifying cardinals, robins, wrens, chickadees, nuthatches and woodpeckers. I search the sky frantically for my new feathered friends, and although I only see a few unidentifiable flutters, I am hooked.
