In 1900 the annual Christmas tradition was that after everyone had feasted they would divide up into teams and each team would go on a hunt to see how many birds they could kill. It wasn't done to feed the family for the year, it was all just a game until one man decided that they needed to save the birds and he talked people into counting birds instead of killing birds. It became what is known as the Christmas Day Bird Count. Today people form all over the world participate. It is the longest running scientific study and we have learned a great deal about distribution, movement, and where species are becoming scarce.
The Christmas Day Bird Count is to be performed between Dec 18th and January 5th of each year. However never has one been performed at Brooks Camp in Katmai. I am hoping that today will be the first time. I have to hope for two things. 1. the weather is good for flying out to Brooks Camp and 2. that we can land on the river. Our pilot will be testing the strength of the ice by dropping 3 - 25 pound rocks out of the plane. If they bounce we can land. Let's hope the rocks bounce.
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