FOURTEEN WAS A ROUGH AGE for me. Each member of my family dealt differently with my parents' bitter divorce. I withdrew into myself and my anger. In just a few weeks I became disconnected from everything that had mattered to me. I even stopped attending the monthly Boy Scout camping trips, which had, until then, been my only escape.

Fortunately for me, Troop 581 was led by a remarkable man. Joseph Kessler was a surrogate father to many of us scouts, and he reached out to me in a most extraordinary way. This longtime member of the National Audubon Society phoned me up one day and sternly insisted that I accompany him on the society's annual Christmas bird count. Of course, the fact that I knew absolutely nothing about birds didn't matter. That afternoon I learned to tell a Wandering Tattler from a Ruddy Turnstone and discovered a new sense of fellowship. Bird-watching has been a source of emotional renewal for me ever since.

I suspect that the rejuvenating power of birding may explain why there are so many amateur ornithologists out there. Their unwavering dedication has made the Christmas bird count one of the greatest amateur-based research programs ever. The first count began on Christmas Day in 1900 as a protest against what was then a tradition of holiday slaughter in which teams of hunters competed to shoot the most birds in one day. What started with just 25 groups of birders in the Northeast now involves more than 45,000 people in 1,600 teams across North America and parts of the Caribbean and Pacific. From mid-December to early January, this army of observers records an estimated 74 million birds of at least 1,200 species. The results appear every winter in a special issue of the National Audubon Society's magazine Field Notes.

The Christmas bird count database is unparalleled; it provides a yearly snapshot of bird distributions stretching back nearly 100 years. But that record is still only a snapshot. Birds are fantastically complex creatures, and the Christmas bird count does not provide enough information even to begin to explore the dynamics of their activities. For example, when environmental pressures, such as those caused by a severe winter, become too intense, entire populations may suddenly leave (ornithologists say "irrupt from") their normal range and invade another. Those species already in that area may feel the pressure of this competition and either irrupt into new areas or begin to die off. This muscling for resources takes place in addition to normal migration.

To study such phenomena requires a more comprehensive database. The ultimate record would require tens of thousands of dedicated observers spread all over the continent counting birds continuously throughout the year, but there aren't nearly enough professional biologists to do this job. Fortunately, there's another vital resource for quality observations--amateur scientists.

In 1987 ornithologists at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology (CLO) and Long Point Bird Observatory created a research program that couples the enthusiasm of amateur scientists with the expertise of professionals to create the most extraordinary research partnership I know. Project FeederWatch is revolutionizing our understanding of avian ecology and bringing the delight of hands-on science into homes all over North America. If you've got a bird feeder, some seeds and a comfy chair, your whole family can join.

Research has never been easier. Participants check their feeders for two consecutive days every two weeks and record the largest number of species they see at a feeder at any one time. FeederWatchers record their observations on computer-readable forms and send them to the CLO at the end of the season. That's all there is to it. Birdscope, the CLO's quarterly newsletter, reports the project's latest findings and other bird-related news. The autumn issue will discuss results from the 1996 season.

Last year amateur ornithologists sent in nearly 70,000 forms--far more data than are gathered for the Audubon Society's Christmas bird count. The FeederWatch database integrates half a million observations, making it by far the most extensive resource of its kind. The data have been a boon for science. Ornithologists can now look at subtle variations within a single species of feeder-visiting birds over both space and time.

For example, when its food supplies fail in winter, the small and extremely beautiful Common Redpoll undergoes a massive irruption. Millions of the birds head south in search of calories. Cornell ornithologists were able to track the movement of these birds week by week as they invaded more hospitable habitats to escape the winter of 1993-94. This was an ornithological first, one of many for FeederWatch.

These data are also revealing such subtleties as the effects of a single severe storm on bird population. FeederWatch observations showed that the numbers of Carolina Wrens on the fringe of their range in the northeast dropped rapidly immediately after a severe snowstorm in January 1994. Yet the wrens had seemed unaffected by a similar storm that occurred two months earlier. Apparently the wrens live on the edge of disaster. Evolution has barely equipped them to survive winter, and if the weather is too bad for too long, the Carolina Wren gets clobbered.

FeederWatchers are also helping chart the invasion of nonnative species. For instance, data show that the House Finch, accidentally introduced on Long Island in 1940, is still expanding in all directions. And when the House Finch is matched against the House Sparrow (introduced to the area in the mid-19th century) in head-to-head competition for resources, the House Sparrow loses badly, and its numbers plummet.

All is not rosy for the House Finch, however. A nasty bacterium called Mycoplasma gallisepticum, once a blight only on poultry, recently mutated and began infecting House Finches and a few related species that occasionally forage in chicken coops. This contagious bacterium infects the eyes and can eventually kill the unlucky host. FeederWatch scientists have developed a special questionnaire to help observers identify afflicted finches. After 24 months of data collection and 22,000 data forms, the researchers can now document the spread of the disease in impressive detail [see illustration at right].

Project FeederWatch is the perfect research project for any budding naturalist, young or old. It costs next to nothing to get involved and requires only a little observation time. You will, of course, have to learn your local birds. I suggest you contact the CLO today and sign up your entire family. Then join your local Audubon Society. Invest in a good field guide and start networking with birders in your area.

Budgetary restrictions limit the data-collecting phase of the CLO's project to six months out of the year, so you have plenty of time to ease into what may well become a rewarding passion for the rest of your life. The next data cycle starts on November 8.

By the way, Mr. Kessler's intervention did more than give me a love of birding. I eventually became an Eagle Scout. Kessler is still active in scouting and still takes part in the Christmas bird count, as he has for the past 25 years.

To join Project FeederWatch, send $15 to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Project FeederWatch SA, P.O. Box 11, Ithaca, NY 14851-0011, or send e-mail to birdeducation@cornell.edu or call (607) 254-2440 or (800) 843-BIRD (2473). In Canada, send C$20 to Bird Studies Canada/PFW/SA, P.O. Box 160, Port Rowan, Ontario N0E 1M0 (e-mail: pfw@nornet.on.ca). Educators should ask about Classroom FeederWatch. For more about other amateur scientist projects, call the Society for Amateur Scientists at 1-401-823-7800.

I gratefully acknowledge informative conversations with Andre Dhondt, Margaret Barker, Richard Bonney, Jr., and Sheila Buff.

Further Reading

The Complete Birder. Jack Connor. Houghton Mifflin, 1988.

A Guide to Bird Behavior, Vols. 1-3. Donald W. Stokes and Lillian Q. Stokes. Little, Brown, 1989.

The Birdfeeder's Handbook. Sheila Buff. Lyons & Burford, 1993.

The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Ornithology. Edited by Michael Brooke and Tim Birkhead. Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Birding for Beginners. Sheila Buff. Lyons & Burford, 1991.

Field Guide to the Birds of North America. Second edition. National Geographic Society, 1993.

The Society for Amateur Scientists (SAS) is a nonprofit research and educational organization dedicated to helping people enrich their lives by following their passion to take part in scientific adventures of all kinds.