Audubon

Thousands of birdwatchers in the United States, Canada and Latin America were out in force from mid-December to the beginning of January taking part in the 112th Christmas Bird Count, sponsored by the National Audubon Society, a U.S. bird conservation organization.

Audubon was blessed with good health, length of years, a devoted and self-sacrificing wife, and a buoyant, sanguine, and elastic disposition. He had the heavenly gift of enthusiasm—a passionate love for the work he set out to do. He was a natural hunter, roamer, woodsman; as unworldly as a child, and as simple and transparent. We have had better trained and more scientific ornithologists since his day, but none with his abandon and poetic fervour in the study of our birds.

Bill Gette and Rebecca Schwer are staff members at the Massachusetts Audubon Society, which maintains an education center and bird banding station for the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge here on the Massachusetts coast. In addition to songbirds, the Refuge also shelters endangered shorebirds such as the Piping Plover, varied mammals and fish.

Just after dawn and a bit inland, it is the sanctuary's role as a resting-stop and sometime breeding ground for migratory songbirds that interests veteran birdwatcher Bill Gette, director of the Massachusetts Audubon Society's education center near the Refuge.