ANTELOPE VALLEY JOINS IN ANNUAL BIRD COUNT.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer

PALMDALE - Bundled up against Antelope Valley's morning chill, binoculars around their necks, Nick and Mary Freeman are walking among the Joshua trees west of Air Force Plant 42.

``I think I hear a woodpecker,'' Mary tells her husband. They walk toward the sound as a speckled black and white bird flits toward a

Joshua tree and clings to its rough stalk.

``It's a ladder-backed woodpecker. It's male,'' Nick says.

``That's a cactus wren next to it,'' says Mary.

The Glendale couple - he's a hospital X-ray technician, she's a secretary at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena - are among 30 people combing a 15-mile diameter circle around Lancaster on Saturday morning, intent on counting and identifying every bird there.

The exercise is part of a 103-year-old American tradition called the Christmas Bird Count, which has been going on in the Antelope Valley since 1979, and which has become a part of the U.S. government's monitoring of the environment.

One of the results of the national 2002 count will be documentation of the effect of the West Nile virus, which has killed thousands of birds in the eastern United States.

From mid-December through Jan. 5, more than 55,000 volunteer ``birders'' - the term preferred by birdwatchers - will count every bird in more than 1,900 15-mile diameter circles in all 50 states, Canada, parts of Central and South America, the West Indies and Pacific islands.

Last year, they counted 52 million birds, according to the Audubon Society, the count's sponsor.

``If there's 2,000 of a particular bird, we want to know how many,'' said birder Alan Brown, a Palmdale air traffic controller who hosted the traditional post-count gathering at his home. ``It's kind of a benchmark count.''

In the Antelope Valley, the circle is centered at Avenue I and 25th Street East. Brown counted birds just inside Edwards Air Force Base's southwestern border, at the marshy Piute Ponds supplied with water by Lancaster's sewage treatment plant.

The Freemans started off at Antelope Valley Country Club's golf course, then headed to the Joshua forest north of there. Later they planned to head to the farm fields along 50th Street East.

Similar counts are going on elsewhere in Southern California, even in built-up Los Angeles. Santa Barbara produces one of the highest species counts, with over 200 recorded yearly. Prudhoe Bay, on Alaska's north slope, has just one species - the common raven, Brown said.

The Lancaster count has had as high as 118 species, with 112 recorded last year. The record count of individuals was 110,000, set in 1981, before the valley's mid-1980s population boom started.

Last year, the birders counted some 22,000 birds, ranging from one golden eagle and one tundra swan - an unusual species for the Mojave Desert - to five black-crowned night herons, 880 common ravens, 1,562 horned larks and 3,311 northern shovelers, a type of duck.

The individual count has been dropping in recent years due in part to development of habitat around Lancaster and in part to changes elsewhere that affect birds' breeding and migration, the birders say.

After Avenue O was extended across the Joshua forest west of Sierra Highway a couple years ago, some bird species disappeared from the area, the Freemans said.

But some birds are expanding their range, like the great-tailed grackle, which has moved into the Antelope Valley from southeastern Arizona.

Both Freemans have been birding since childhood.

``I can remember being 5 and asking my mother what a California quail and a meadowlark was,'' Nick said. ``Fortunately she had a Peterson's Field Guide laying around and would look them up for me.''

Now the couple willingly drives hundreds of miles to check out a report of a rare or unusual bird. Birders have a communication network that includes the Internet, telephone recordings and GPS coordinates to report sightings.

``It's kind of fun when you focus on a rare bird. That's called chasing. We're avowed chasers,'' Nick said. ``On one three-day weekend we drove almost up to the Oregon border and swung down to Bakersfield and out to New Mexico - one three-day weekend with one night of sleep.''

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Nick and Mary Freeman were among 30 people combing a 15-mile diameter around Lancaster on Saturday morning, intent on counting and identifying every bird there.

(2) Nick and Mary Freeman count birds around Lancaster on Saturday morning, taking part in a nationwide Christmas Bird Count, sponsored by the Audubon Society.

(3) Water fowl at Piute Ponds are included in the annual Christmas Bird Count, used to monitor the environment.

Jeff Goldwater/Staff Photographer