While humankind is rightfully concerned with the COVID-19 pandemic, wildlife continues as usual—including the birds of Christian County, which were numbered in the annual Audubon Society Christmas bird count Sunday.
If you saw some vehicles traveling slowly with binoculars in the windows, it could have been bird counting teams made up of volunteers, which covered roughly 250 miles across Hopkinsville and Christian County, allowing plenty of room for social distancing. Irene Grace has been participating for a long time, and says this is all about monitoring the bird population to see how they’re faring.
The birds that are in the area during the winter months are the ones that are with us all year round, with Grace calling them ‘our birds’. If anyone was interested in learning more about the count, and others that take place, Grace says they can like the Little River Audubon Society Christian County Kentucky Facebook page.
The group typically sees around 50 different species of birds in that one day of counting, though have gotten higher than that before. This count isn’t just a Christian County thing—counters across the nation go out in force to measure how the birds are doing.