Bye, bye birder

BERN TOWNSHIP'S ED BARRELL MARKS HIS LAST YEAR AS THE COMPILER FOR THE BERNVILLE CHRISTMAS BIRD COUNT

Over his 30 years as compiler of the Bernville Christmas Bird Count, Ed Barrell has not only watched birds but also the weather.

He doesn’t remember unusual birds in 1999, but he remembers the cold.

“That was the low, 6 degrees; the high that day was 18, and windy,” he shuddered with a laugh. “Bitter. Your eyes would water, and it was hard to be out for long periods of time. Just the cold.”

The Bernville count is the youngest of the three centered in Berks County — Reading began in 1911 and Hamburg in 1966 — and therefore has always been the count scheduled last in the official Audubon count period that runs from Dec. 14 until Jan. 5, always falling in the first weekend in January.

This year’s count was held Jan. 1, in the rain and the fog.

And although he has participated in every Bernville count and plans to keep participating in future counts, this year marks his last as compiler.

“I enjoyed doing it, especially comparing the numbers and looking at the species, but I just thought it’s time to pass it on,” he said. “I don’t find it very difficult to do, and I was never a numbers person. I just thought 30 years was a good number to round it off.”

Barrell, 70, has participated in area Christmas bird counts every year since 1977, and like many Berks birders got his start at Hawk Mountain.

“What got me into birding

was a 1975 article in the Pennsylvania Game News about Hawk Mountain,” the Bern Township resident said. “I decided to go up one day, and there were lots of hawks flying low and close. “I was hooked.”

A little while later, he attended a program on Hawk Mountain at the Reading Public Museum presented by the Baird Ornithological Club, which celebrated its centennial last year.

“I went and met people like Bob Cook, Rudy Keller, Joan Silagy and Jack Holcomb and started going on field trips with the club,” he said.

In 1977, Cook asked him to help out on the Reading count, and he has been doing counts every year since then, often working on four counts — the three centered in Berks and the Elverson count, which overlaps southern Berks County.

His birding hasn’t been confined only to the counts or to Berks County.

“My birding interests have taken my wife Sarah and me to other states and countries like Belize, Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador and Tanzania,” he said.

He has also been active in the local Baird club as a former vice president, president, board member and

BILL UHRICH — READING EAGLE Ed Barrell is used to birding in the cold at the frozen Blue Marsh Lake. He has been the compiler of the Bernville Christmas Bird Count for the past 30years.

BILL UHRICH — READING EAGLE A ring-billed gull at Blue Marsh Lake, Bern Township.