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Bird-watcher launches fund-raiser

He's doing 30 surveys in 30 days to gather $30,000

By MARY MCINTYRE Special to the Journal Sentinel

Friday, May 28, 2004

Wisconsin resident Noel Cutright is going on 30 counts in 30 days to celebrate 30 years -- 30 years of Breeding Bird Surveys, that is - - for which he hopes to raise $30,000 in donations for bird conservation.

The counts he is going on are three-minute stops along 24.5-mile routes established in Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin, including a survey early Tuesday in the Town of Raymond in Racine County. Every half-mile, he will stop to record every bird seen or heard within a quarter-mile radius.

Cutright has done these surveys since the 1970s. To celebrate those 30 years, he is launching the Quad 30, a fund-raiser for the Important Bird Areas program, to attempt one count every day for 30 days, starting Sunday.

The counts are done by volunteers for a program called the North American Breeding Bird Survey, started in 1966 to monitor North American birds. More than 4,100 routes are in North America, according to Cutright's Web site.

Data from the counts are compiled by the U.S. Geological Survey.

All money pledged will go toward the bird areas program. Cutright will pay his expenses.

Cutright has loved birds since before he can remember, he said in an interview. He took his first class on birds as an undergraduate at Miami University of Ohio. He later received his doctorate from Cornell University as a wildlife scientist.

"I've been involved all my life," Cutright said.

He participates in several bird-watching organizations. He started the Riveredge Bird Club and recently attended a statewide convention of the Wisconsin Society of Ornithology, which he has served as president for the past year. For the last 27 years, he has worked on environmental issues in his job at We Energies.

The Quad 30 tour gives him a chance to return to his home state of Ohio, where his interest in nature began.

On Tuesday, Cutright will start a count -- at 4:30 a.m. -- in the Town of Raymond in Racine County. The survey route will end near the state line in Kenosha County. On Wednesday, he will travel across Racine County on a count that will end near Lake Geneva.

On these tours, volunteers identify and record birds by both sound and sight. They are not professionally trained, Cutright said, but they get better the longer they do it.

"Even those that are highly skilled will occasionally be stumped by a bird," Cutright said.

There are many threats to birds these days, he said. The most obvious is the loss of habitat. Farmland all over Kenosha and Racine counties is being converted to single-family housing, he said, and grassland species are threatened by the conversion of grazing land to crop-growing land.

Even outdoor cats threaten the bird population, he said.

"They will still hunt and kill birds," Cutright said. "It's very important to try to keep all cats indoors."

Because of these challenges, Racine County's bird landscape is changing, Cutright said. For example, the red-headed woodpecker and purple martin have declined significantly, while sandhill cranes and Canada geese are on the rise.

# posted by Medical Information : 3:24 AM