2014 marks the 27th year we've been doing the Stellwagen Christmas Bird Count.
We are now recording birds.
I'm recording the time, species, number of individuals, their behavior.
Are they flying or sitting. Association with a vessel or marine mammal
Starting about 4 or 5 years ago we began working on
the sanctuary's research vessel. This vessel the AUK.
The sanctuary made it available to us throughout the entire
Christmas bird count period which is between Dec. 14th and Jan. 5th.
We had the luxury of being able to pick and choose
exactly which days we wanted to do it on.
One of the really nice things about studying seabirds
is that they are often above water.
They are one of the first indicators of change.
We can see them easily and when anything
in the environment changes they change with it.
They move to different locations
their behaviors are different.
We can almost study them like terrestrial biologist.
They are a great indicator barometer
of change in the sanctuary environment.
As far as I know there are no other
standardized transect Christmas bird counts
anywhere in North America.