by Linda Winnie
The first Bigfork Christmas Bird Count (CBC) took place in December 1974. This means that the birders who combed the Bigfork Count Circle for birds on December 16 of this past year were engaged in an historic task. They were carrying out the 50th Bigfork CBC!
Ron Lang, then pastor of the United Methodist Church in Bigfork, organized that first Bigfork Count, and worked with a group of Bigfork birders to draw the 7.5-mile radius count circle that would span a wide variety of bird habitats. They chose to center the circle at the intersection of Highways 35 and 83, near the “Little Brown Church” north of Bigfork, so it would include more than 30 miles of the Swan and Flathead Rivers, the north end of Flathead Lake, and habitats varying from the croplands of the Lower Valley to the spruce-fir and cedar-hemlock forests in the Swan and Crane Mountain foothills. Among those who worked with Lang was Jeanne Robocker (later central to the Flathead Audubon Society (FAS) Education program), who afterward recalled that she made sure the circle included her own house near Egan Slough, an area she knew contained a wide variety of bird species.
The 1974 Bigfork CBC was one of the eight Counts held in Montana that year. In 2022, 27 Counts took place in Montana. The compiler for the first Count was Ron Lang. Compilers since then include Dan Sullivan (first President of FAS), Wanda Jamieson (3rd President), Jeanne Robocker, Dan Casey (for 28 years!), and Craig Hohenberger (currently in his 9th year).
That first Bigfork CBC, only 37 species were observed. The next year, 58 species were found, and the number stayed well above that in subsequent years. No data on number of participants is available until the third Bigfork Count, when 18 people took part. In general, records on early Bigfork Counts are spotty until 1990, but what is available shows the species numbers increasing, while the average number of participants reaches a plateau. The data that is available allows us to compare numbers of participants and species averaged over six early Bigfork counts, with averages over the three most recent groups of 10:
| Years | Average Participants | Average Species |
|---|---|---|
| 1976-1981 | 29 | 66 |
| 1993-2002 | 35 | 81 |
| 2003-2012 | 33 | 82 |
| 2013-2022 | 33 | 85 |
Buried in these averages are several notable high numbers. In 2011 the Bigfork CBC became the first CBC in Montana to reach a species count of 90; and in the last 10 years this high has been equaled or exceeded three times: in 2017, 98 species were recorded; in 2019, 92; and in 2021, 90.
The 1974 Bigfork CBC led fairly quickly to the formation of the FAS in 1977. The story is told by Dan Sullivan, Flathead Audubon’s first President, in the March 1977 issue of the Accipiter Express, the first newsletter of the FAS:
“The Flathead Audubon Society is only three months old, but its real origin began in Dec., 1974 with our first Audubon Christmas Bird Count. From the people participating in the count, the Lower Flathead Valley Bird Club [also known as the Bigfork Bird Club] was formed. Special credit goes to Ron Lang, formerly of Bigfork, whose initial interest and initiative organized the count and the bird club. Ron’s formative efforts essentially resulted in the formation of our Audubon chapter.
As the bird club became established and began attracting new members who brought with them interests beyond that of birds, it became apparent that either we grow or lose these people. As a result, during the fall of 1976 we began exploring Audubon membership. At the end of our 3rd Audubon Christmas Bird Count [1976] the club voted to join Audubon thereby forming the Flathead Audubon Society.“
Information about early Bigfork Counts can be found scattered through the early FAS newsletters. National Audubon offers data for all recent Christmas Bird Counts. Audubon has published printed summaries of CBC results since the Count began in 1900. Click here to see reproductions.