COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) - It was 5:30 a.m. on a Saturday, and Suzanne Wright stood in a field deep in the Eagle Bluffs Conservation area, listening intently.
"There's a common yellow throat about 15 meters out," she said to her husband, Brad Wright, who sat on an overturned bucket nearby and logged the information she called out.
Although Brad Wright doesn't quite have his wife's knack for identifying birds by their call, he has been joining her on morning birding trips since seeing the vivid color of a Prothonotary warbler as the two biked across the state on the Katy Trail about 10 years ago, the Columbia Missourian (http://bit.ly/1KqLhHo) reported.
"OK, now how far were those three indigo buntings?" Brad Wright asked.
"Well, I'd say probably 40 meters," she replied. "That's it for our first count. Let's get out of here before the bugs eat us alive."
Her husband smiled, finished filling in the data sheet on his clipboard and got back into the golf cart alongside his wife.
The couple of 45 years has been participating in the Eagle Bluffs Bird Monitoring Project - which began in 2012 - since May 20. Alongside 24 other volunteers, they've helped collect information on the bird species that migrate through and inhabit the 4,431-acre Eagle Bluffs Conservation Area.
Clayton Light, the Department of Conservation wildlife biologist at Eagle Bluffs, has changed the bird counting program's original protocol since he took over the position in October 2014. His goal is to make the data volunteers gather more usable in the long term. It's analyzed in various ways - to track migration periods and to assess how habitats at Eagle Bluffs need to be managed. But that's just a sampling of its uses.
"With this program, I have the data that answers a multitude of questions the department might have for me down the road, whether it be managing the wetlands or manipulating areas where we see that birds are heavily breeding in," Light said.
The conservation area's 17 wetland pools allow the flooding of 1,100 acres of moist soil marshes, emergent marshes and crop fields, which provide habitat for migrating and wintering birds, according to the Eagle Bluff website.
The count is done using a 12-minute count: Every three minutes, volunteers identify as many birds as they can in a 250-meter radius at their counting point in the conservation area. Their work ends July 20 because, in the short term, it is mainly concerned with species that raise young this time of year, Light said.
Light, who got his start working for the Conservation Department while studying wildlife and conservation management at Missouri State University, said the program couldn't exist without the volunteers.
"It's really crucial to have the resources these volunteers give me because between the time they save me and the bird data they supply me, my capability of doing research work vastly opens up," he said.
Suzanne Wright, who is also a member of the Columbia conservation group Boone's Lick Master Naturalists, said she and her husband like the idea of helping Eagle Bluffs because it's one of their favorite places to bird. Of all the conservation projects she's been involved with in Columbia, bird count programs tend to be her favorite.
"Some birders don't realize what they can do for the environment by participating in this kind of data collection," Wright said.
Ian Cost, an MU graduate teaching assistant for MU's Department of Pathology and Anatomical Sciences who is also volunteering, said bird counting gives researchers and others a more dynamic picture of how bird populations fluctuate from year to year.
"Putting together the information from this count, with other counts in mind, is going to allow Clayton and (the Conservation Department) to plan for activities in the wetlands and management of the area year-round," Cost said.
But there's something captivating about the mystery of it.
"Sometimes you see a flash of color or hear a song that is slightly off, and you have to do some detective work," he said. "I really love solving those mysteries, whether they take three guides and the Internet or just a little patience and a second look or listen."
Light said that even he can learn from the volunteers, as many are experienced birders who've done many counts. Because they're doing what they love - bird watching - they might not even be aware of how much they're contributing to science.
"They just love being out there," he said, "bettering their birding skills and enjoying nature."
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