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Lehi • Jeanne Le Ber and Ray Smith have binoculars hanging from their necks as they note the mundane birds — house sparrows, rock pigeons, and so on — they see around the farm animals at Thanksgiving Point.

Then their friend, Ellen Fisher, shouts excitedly, "Raptor! Raptor! Raptor!"

Up come the binoculars, and the three bird enthusiasts spot a bird of prey swooping and gliding above the other birds. They quickly identify the raptor as a Cooper's hawk, which preys on small birds.

So, in a sense, the Cooper's hawk is doing the same thing Le Ber, Smith and Fisher are: Looking for interesting birds.

The three bird watchers were taking part Thursday in the annual Jordan River Bird Count, a one-day effort — organized by Le Ber since 1992 for the Great Salt Lake Audubon Society — to conduct a census of the number and types of wild birds near the line separating Salt Lake and Utah counties.

"We call it 'citizen science,'" said Le Ber, who works as a health sciences librarian at the University of Utah. Added Smith, a retired cook and Le Ber's partner of 39 years, "we do it to add a little bit to the science [of birds]."

The Jordan River count is one of 26 bird counts conducted around Utah every year, Le Ber said. The results for each count are sent to the National Audubon Society, to be added to its database. The totals are also used locally, Le Ber said, by such agencies as the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources and Tracy Aviary.

On Thursday morning, just hours into the new year, about two dozen bird watchers met for breakfast at Johanna's restaurant in Sandy. They split up into six teams, covering seven sectors within a 7-1/2 mile radius of Point of the Mountain. Because someone dropped out at the last minute, Le Ber's team had to cover two areas, taking a section in Draper in the morning and Lehi in the afternoon.

In Lehi, the team was allowed into the gardens at Thanksgiving Point, where they spotted a variety of species — ring-billed gulls, American robins, black-billed magpies, and mallards among them. They also counted a dark-eyed junco, two spotted towhees, some Northern flickers, lots of black-capped chickadees and one mountain chickadee.

And they saw lots of invasive, non-native species that are as common as dirt to bird watchers. One such species is the European starling, a speckled black nuisance that proliferates in North America because, in a case now infamous among naturalists, a 19th century New York pharmacist spearheaded a campaign to introduce to Central Park every bird mentioned in William Shakespeare's plays. The starlings have become ubiquitous, with an estimated population of 150 million in North America.

After counting up the birds in the gardens, the trio went to Thanksgiving Point's Farm Country, where a variety of farm animals are raised. "Dung attracts birds," Fisher said matter-of-factly.

Sure enough, the birds were plentiful, in spite of temperatures in the low 20s.

Smith counted at least 30 house sparrows while still in the Farm Country parking lot. A line of more than a dozen pigeons were basking in the sun along the edge of one roof. And some Eurasian collared doves, another non-native species, could be seen in the nearby trees.

But among the common birds, the bird counters found a few surprises. A quick glance at a duck pond netted a count of aroung 120 ducks and mallards. But on closer inspection, Smith and Le Ber saw a pair of Canada geese, a pintail and an American wigeon. (There were also a few farm geese, but domesticated birds aren't counted in this survey.)

Based on the numbers she's seen over the years, Le Ber said bird populations are moving farther north every year. This could be attributed to global climate change, she said — though Smith said another factor is that more people have backyard bird feeders, thus providing more stable food supplies for birds in the winter.

Even as the trio prepares to pack it in, and drive to a Sandy steakhouse where the other teams will turn in their tallies, Fisher spots a pair of crows in a tree. Everyone stops to pick up the binoculars one more time for a look.

Le Ber said the count is a fun way, despite the cold, for people to enjoy their shared interest in birds. To this Smith adds, with a laugh, "birds of a feather flock together."