RALEIGH -- Birds have some hardy friends in Raleigh.
Enthusiasts endured bone-chilling rain and ankle-deep mud Saturday morning for the annual Audubon bird count, the 110th such event sponsored by the national conservation group.
The event gauges how the environment is fostering these creatures, as nature-lovers each year conduct a census of all the birds they see and hear in a designated area. In the weeks bookending Christmas, bird lovers across the hemisphere participate, providing a global glimpse of how birds are faring amid growing environmental challenges.
In Wake County, 15 teams set out in pockets enveloping the State Farmer's Market. Today, teams are planning a similar count in Durham.
The December hunt is sporting - without guns, dogs or camouflage. Instead, bird fans are armed with binoculars and a list of common species affixed to a clipboard.
Becky Desjardins, president of Wake County's Audubon Society, pulled on a set of waders before daybreak in a church parking lot along Ebenezer Church Road in Raleigh.
She had been here before, two years prior.
But fancy houses have popped up since she last surveyed the bird community in the area, and she worried how that might dampen the chirps she hoped to hear.
"So much has happened here," said Desjardins, holding a set of speakers toward the forest's edge to play the call of an owl. She hoped one would answer, but no luck.
It's been a tough go for birds in the past four decades.
Several species are causing North Carolina bird lovers to fret. Acid rain has been stealing the wood thrush's lunch of land snails. Sport utility vehicles and beach lovers keep threatening piping plover eggs on the coast. Smog is choking the golden winged warbler in the mountains. South in the sandhills, Bachman's sparrows are hunting hiding places in pines that have fallen to fires. And their cousins on the coast are making do with salt marshes growing shallow as the sea level rises.
Veteran birders lament the animals' falling counts. Fifty years ago, those in Wake County spied or heard more than 100 species during December inventories. In recent years, the number of species spotted during the outing has dropped to about 75.
Desjardins and Audubon club members Carol George and Jennie Dirienzo climbed down a slope leading to Crabtree Creek. They scanned naked tree tops for signs of life.
Suddenly, a cluster of juncos flew out of a patch of scrub. George took note on her clipboard.
The women slogged along the creek's bank, silent save for the rush of cars crossing a nearby bridge and a plane humming through the sky. Desjardins began making a gentle "spishing" sound birders use to draw the animals out of their hiding places.
Suddenly, there was a chorus of creatures. The thump, thump of a red-bellied woodpecker, the squawk of a red-tailed hawk, the shrill song of a sparrow.
George scribbled. Dirienzo giggled. Desjardins pressed her binoculars to her eyes to get a closer look.
Then, stillness again, filled only with the crunch of boots snapping bush limbs.
Not 10 feet ahead loomed a symbol of the forces birds have been facing for years: an orange mesh fence marking the land a developer likely intends to clear.
