River of Biodiversity : Christmas Bird Census

In the late 1800s people celebrated a holiday tradition known as the Christmas "Side Hunt". Teams of gunners would be picked; the winners were the group with the highest pile of feathered and pelted carcasses. A feast followed.

Wild Turkeys, Camp Zehnder YMCA Brick, NJ. Thanks to the manager and Ward Halligan for arranging access.

The 2010 "Hunters".

As 1900 began, the conservation movement was just developing and on Christmas Day 1900, Frank Chapman an ornithologist with the fledgling Audubon Society, proposed and started a new holiday.
It was the "Christmas Bird Census" (CBC); birds would be counted rather than killed.

Ring-necked Ducks, Lakewood, NJ

For most species, CBC data is much less important than that of Breeding Bird Surveys gathered in spring and summer. CBCs have a strong recreational, recruiting and social component and are enjoyed by the public; it's a complex subject to ascertain whether the tens of thousands of hours spent on the annual event could be better applied to projects with immediate returns such as habitat protection and improvement.

The crew on the Manasquan River showing determination to improve their naked eye skills by refusing to even have binoculars.

Ruddy Ducks, Manasquan River

On this count the best bird was a seal in the Manasquan River that someone thought "had to be a cormorant, since it dove and only showed black". We had 62 species with the highlights being 5 Bald Eagles, 14 Wild Turkeys, an American Woodcock. 3 Palm Warblers and a Rusty Blackbird.