Glenview Bird Counter Marks 50 Years

A Glenview man has made bird counting before and after the Christmas holiday a tradition. In 2015, he will celebrate a half century of doing so.

The Chicago Tribune follows the routine of Jeff Sanders, who began helping with the National Audubon Society’s annual Christmas Bird Count 50 years ago.

“Jeff Sanders certainly has contributed to that wealth of data,” Libby Hill of Evanston told the Tribune. She hosts a countdown dinner after the Chicago North Shore Count, which Sanders has participated in for nearly 50 years.

Sanders, 66, began participating in that count, held the Saturday after Dec. 25, when he was about 16 years old and living in Chicago. The organized counts generally occur in late December or early January and began as a way to offset the hunting of birds, which was popular when the trend started a half-century ago. 

He now goes to Harms Woods in Glenview to document owls on count day. On the North Shore, he is reported to often tally dozens of black-capped chickadees, mourning doves, northern cardinals and red-bellied woodpeckers.

All the data Sanders and other bird counters collect appear in a database administered by the National Audubon Society.

Over the years, Sanders has participated in as many as nine bird counts per year - but nowadays he focuses on three, the Chicago North Shore Count, the Chicago Urban Count and the Waukegan Count held on New Year’s Day.

Read more via the Chicago Tribune