Roxanna Thompson
Northern News Services

Fort Simpson (Jan 06/06) - In the early dawn on Dec. 17 the woods near the access road to Wrigley resounded loudly with hoots and screeches.

Doug Tate looks for birds around the village during the Christmas bird count. - Roxanna Thompson/NNSL photo

Anyone listening could be forgiven for thinking Fort Simpson was being invaded by giant owls. In fact, there wasn't an owl to be seen. The calls of great horned, great grey and boreal owls were being broadcasted from the speakers of Doug Tate's truck.

A conservation biologist for the Nahanni National Park Reserve, Tate was out for the seventh annual Christmas bird count.

Between 10 to 12 people donated their Saturday to count their feathered friends in a 24 km diameter circle around Fort Simpson. The community's count is just one small part of the North American survey hosted by the National Audubon Society.

"It's like a snapshot of what is happening with birds in the winter," said Tate.

If there were any owls in the woods they were not taking the bait and making it onto the count.

"The odds of seeing them are hit or miss," Tate admitted.

But he wasn't deterred. With the sun lighting the horizon, it was off to the Martin River.

Armed with a pair of binoculars and a white notebook for keeping count, Tate went for a walk through the calf-deep snow. Stopping periodically, he lifted the earflaps on his blue hat to listen. A distinctive tapping sound quickly led to the sighting of a hairy woodpecker and then a three-toed woodpecker.

Bird sightings vary from year to year, said Tate. This year there were lots of crossbills. This might be because of an abundant white spruce cone crop, the bird's food source.

Not surprisingly, leading the count almost every year are ravens. Counting them at the dump, Tate recorded over 180. Also making appearances were boreal and black-capped chickadees, grey jays and tiny redpolls.

In seven years, the most unusual sightings were of two lone white-crowned and american tree sparrows in 2002. The birds usually winter farther south, but it was a warm winter that year, he said.

For Tate the count is a great reason for getting outdoors.

"I have a fun time doing it," he said. "If I can get other people interested in birds or the natural world around them than that's a bonus."

His real wish, however, would be if a Northern goshawk or an owl made an appearance.

"Those would be great," he said.