HEART OF LOUISIANA: Winter Birds

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) – For some nature lovers, an early morning walk with temperatures near freezing is the perfect time for spotting birds. You can hear all kinds of bird sounds coming from the trees and underbrush.

Jerhemy Lonzo, a long-time bird enthusiast, points to the top of a nearby tree. He tells me, “hearing the sounds is one of the most important things. If you listen to the bird, you can pinpoint it and try to find out where it is and when you see it like you hit the lottery,” Lonzo says.

Lonzo enjoys birdwatching and parks throughout the New Orleans area. Today he joins the Orleans Audubon Society for a walk through Joe Brown Park and the Audubon Nature Center in the eastern part of the city.

“There are three goldfinch right there,” said Joelle Finley.

Finley of the Audubon Society helped organize the Joe Brown Bird walk.

“I like wintertime because we have a completely different set of birds. They come down from the north and they winter like the American goldfinch. They’re only here in our winter months,” Finley said.

The problem I have is that I can hear the birds all around me sometimes, but where are they? It’s so hard to see them sometimes.

“Well, you have to kind of home in on where you’re hearing the bird. That gives you a key as to where the bird’s located. So if you know that you’re hearing something from this big oak tree behind us, then you’re gonna walk over to the oak and you’re gonna start looking,” said Finley.

And you have to be quick with a camera. Just about the time I spot a bird and then get the camera pointed in the right direction. The bird flies away. The Audubon Society hosts workshops and field trips like this one to help newbies locate and identify birds. And spotting different types of birds is what brought bird enthusiast Kris Hansen from Chicago to New Orleans.

“So in Chicago at this time of year, you get some waterfowl and some swans, but most of the things that are fun have come down here for the winter. So I followed them,” said Hansen.

“I’m taking this detour to see if we could get purple finches down here,” John Wise said.

Wise of Metairie says he is a lifelong bird watcher.

“The canals around here, you can find all kinds of birds. It’s probably one of the wilder spots in an urban environment,” said Wise.

But Wise has noticed changes in local bird populations.

“One of the things you can notice, over a 10 year, 15 year period, is you can observe the decline in diversity of species in this area. And this is one of the richest areas in North America, at least in the United States,” Wise said.

Serious bird watchers will photograph and log all of the species they spot in the wild. Those lists can run into the thousands. And they also can enjoy a few hours of wandering through the trees, surrounded by the chirping sounds of birds.

More information about bird watching and the Orleans Audubon Society can be found on Heart of Louisiana’s website.

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