The Long View

As we were preparing this issue, we asked Christmas Bird Count participants for their favorite memories from the annual community science effort. Our inbox soon flooded with birds. There was the “duck-nado,” thousands of waterfowl strong. Barred Owls arriving in a moonlit woods with the startling thwack of talons on wood. A rare Yellow-breasted Chat seen through the slush. Collected over the count’s 125-year history, these anecdotes are more than snapshots in time. As you’ll see in Rene Ebersole's feature, they provide an important view into how birds are doing in the long run.

“I wish more people realized the impact that they can make on science by volunteering for just one day out of the year,” wrote Ronda DeCaire of Elkhart County, Indiana. “Within my lifetime alone I have seen birds expanding their range in the Midwest, and others in decline. The data that is collected demonstrates what we are witnessing.” 

Stories throughout this issue show valuable insights can be gained from paying attention to small details, then pulling back to look at the big picture. Amy Seglund finished a six-year study on White-tailed Ptarmigan that suggested the birds were doing fine—only to spot clues soon after that they weren’t. So she headed back into the field to gather more data, which are now telling a different tale: one of a species vulnerable to climate change, as Elizabeth Miller details in our cover story.

The Indigenous communities near the James and Hudson Bays, meanwhile, know from millennia of living in close relationship with the ecosystem how sensitive birds and people are to environmental change. As a result, they’re advocating for both a marine conservation area and a more expansive vision of protected lands and waters, as writer Sarah Sax reports. 

When we step back and look through a wider lens, we see other kinds of relationships as well. In a vast collection of Bald Eagle objects, we see our complicated history with the bird that symbolizes our nation. In an immense gathering of crows, we see the familiar dynamics of families. 

And in the Christmas Bird Count, we see a community drawn together by a shared interest in avian life. The memories that volunteers sent us had equally strong impressions of people: mentors and partners, neighbors and children, friends old and new. In today’s sometimes overwhelming world, those relationships are something to count, too. 

This piece originally ran in the Winter 2024 issue. To receive our print magazine, become a member by making a donation today.