Ed Barrell
field trip leader.
But he relishes the memories of the many birds seen and the birders who have participated in the Bernville count.
Because the count circle includes Blue Marsh Lake, the Bernville count has been noted for its gulls, nine species of which have been recorded throughout the count’s history.
In fact, the Bernville count recorded the highest number of ring-billed gulls in North America during the 2006 count: 35,682.
“The reason there were so many gulls is that there was a pig farm up near Shartlesville that was dumping waste in the fields, and the gulls would leave here and go up there and then come back here and roost for the night,” he said.
A rare gull that showed up in 1992, a European mew gull, created a stir that attracted birders from throughout the East.
“Another unusual one
that same year was the laughing gull,” he said. “We don’t get laughing gulls around here too much. They’re around the Jersey coast but not too much inland. We’ve had glaucous gull — a bird of the Far North — over a number of years, too, and an Iceland gull a couple times.”
The pig farm was subsequently shut down, but Blue Marsh still attracts a number of gulls.
A total of 148 bird species
have been found on the Bernville counts.
Another rarity on the count was a green-tailed towhee, a Western species, that was first found near the Blue Marsh stilling basin in late November 2011 and remained until the following April. It was the first Berks record for that species.
The Bernville count circle also encompasses the many farms and fields in western Berks, and in the second year of the count during another exceptionally cold winter an unprecedented number of roughlegged hawks irrupted into the count circle.
Rudy Keller, an original Bernville count participant, recalled finding the birds in his Marion Township territory.
“Rough-legs are birds of the arctic tundra that come this far south only in winters when heavy snow that hides their vole prey covers the regions to our north,” he said. “Conditions must have been just right in the winter of 1986-87, when the BCBC recorded 28 rough-legged hawks, an unsurpassed number, on Jan. 4.
“Twenty of those birds were seen by Joan and Bob Silagy and me. As we drove along the roads through the farmland, we found new birds around every bend and over every hill, perched on treetops or hovering over the snowy, tundra-like fields.”
Although a conspicuous feature of those early counts, the last rough-leg was recorded in 2008.
“Warmer, less snowy winters due to climate change that have kept the birds north, and a change in farming practices to ever more row crops like corn and soybeans, which do not support the meadow voles on which rough-legs prey, account for the decline,” Keller said.
It’s this type of long-term record keeping that makes the Christmas counts and the job of compiler so important.
But after 30 years as compiler, Barrell will hand the duties over to Mike Slater, another long-time participant in the count.
“It’s all good,” Barrell said. “I just enjoyed doing it, no matter the weather.”