Long-running survey keeps tabs on Redding's birds
Redding has more egrets and turkey vultures, but fewer meadowlarks and kestrels. Yellow-rumped warblers and hooded mergansers are holding their own.
That's the word from Bill Oliver of the Wintu chapter of the National Audubon Society, who has been poring over 35 years of bird-counting data. The numbers show some changes in the birds commonly seen in yards, along streams, on ponds and lakes and soaring overhead. A few bird species that once shunned Redding in winter are now year-round residents, while other populations have been shrinking along with their habitat.
"We're doing fairly well," Oliver said. " But many birds don't fare well when you develop and put in subdivisions and roads and so forth, so change is to be expected."
Oliver is the compiler of Wintu Audubon's annual Christmas Bird Count, part of the national organization's effort to track birds in North America. One-day counts are held in December and January within defined 15-mile diameter areas. Started in 1900, the count is the longest-running wildlife census and is used by researchers, conservationists and others.
Gates plans swings to the areas where fighting has been most instense — to the east and to the south. Gates plans to take indiviual photos with hundreds of soldiers and will give each of them his personal coin, a military tradition.