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There is a lot to see in Anegada: the largest reef complex in the Lesser Antilles, sea turtles, tarpons and small nurse sharks; stretches of white sand beaches and patches of rare and endangered plants. But the National Parks Trust workers surveying the island last Friday weren’t interested in keeping their nose to the ground.
Instead they kept their heads in the clouds. Last week, National Parks Trust employees ferried to Anegada to collect research data as part of the National Audubon Society’s 108th annual Christmas Bird Count (CBC), which also included a bird count on Tortola on Dec. 29. The bird count gives “a snapshot of information,” explained Nancy Woodfield Pascoe, planning and development co-ordinator with the National Parks Trust. From the data gathered, researchers and National Parks Trust workers can identify newly introduced species and important bird areas. The CBC is part of the Audubon Society’s Citizen Science programme — a way for bird lovers to generate “vital information for the conservation of birds.” The CBC is an “early-winter bird census,” according to the Audubon Web site, “where volunteers follow specified routes through a designated area … counting every bird they see or hear all day. It’s not just a species tally — all birds are counted all day, giving an indication of the total number of birds in the circle that day.” The Anegada bird count was abnormally quiet with fewer birds sighted than usual. Still, the bird watchers recorded seeing mango hummingbirds and mockingbirds in the brush, ruddy turnstones along the beach, and herons amid the mangroves. Along the salt ponds, the noise of bananaquit in the trees was constant. |
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