"Intrepid" was the word.

Bird enthusiasts Bill Sedivy of Boise, and Rachael Krueger, visiting from Portland, were among the fleet of bird enthusiasts who braved persistent snowflakes and deep drifts to be part of the National Audubon Society's 109th Christmas Bird Count on Saturday.

The two birders walked through the snow, along the Boise River, not far from the Garden City Library.

Krueger noted the distinct call of a chickadee - hearing a bird counts as much as seeing one for Audubon's purposes.

Snow fell, making a white ledge on Sedivy's hat. It fogged the birders' binoculars, covered their tripod, their spotting scope.

"You could call this 'extreme' birding," Sedivy quipped.

The two, thrown together by chance for the Saturday count, spotted 33 bird species by the end of the day, ruby crowned kinglets, Canada geese, among them.

Last year, Sedivy, who is executive director of Idaho Rivers United and a participant of bird counts here and elsewhere for 20 years, had spotted around 35 species in the same stretch of land.

The snow could have been to blame for the slightly lower number. Lots of birds hunker down in heavy snow, he said.

Luckily, many do not.

Sedivy and Krueger, who teaches middle school biology in Oregon and regularly regales her students with stories of her bird adventures (seeing an eagle snatch fish from an osprey), watched a great blue heron standing still on the river bank Saturday.

The bird was as slate-colored as the water. Then it took flight, wings distinctly curtain-like.

The annual bird count takes place across the country, mid-December through early January involving thousands of volunteers, or as Audubon calls them, "citizen scientists."

Numerous counts take place in all parts of Idaho as well. The first Boise count took place in the late 1960s. Nampa started even earlier, in the early 1950s.

All the information gathered by amateur scientists every year goes into an Audubon online database available to the public.

RL Rowland is the organizer of the Boise count. He's a retired Air Force man, "hardcore" in the bird sense for about a decade, he said.

Ask him his favorite local bird, and he'll tell you that while he likes to watch different birds at different times of the year - right now, it's gulls, nearly 20 species of which can be found in the area - he's more of a "gee-whizzer."

This means that even though he's seen "gazillions of horned larks," in birding spots like Simco Road near Mountain Home, he'll say "gee-whiz" after the first sighting, and "gee-whiz" after the hundredth.

"It's still fun," Rowland said.

The count also is serious business.

It grew out of an old Christmas season hunting tradition, after early era environmentalists suggested that people might want to look at birds, count them and note their varieties, rather than shoot them.

"It used to be a wholesale carnage," said Rowland, who's not shy with his opinions. "And what gets me, is they weren't even eating the meat."

In addition to the valuable public data base it provides, the count is now a good way to monitor the ecological health of a region. "Birds are mobile. They are an 'indicator' species," Rowland said.

A diversity of birds in an area hints at a healthy ecosystem.

The Christmas count continues in the area next Saturday, with a trip to C.J. Strike Reservoir and the Snake River from below the dam to Bruneau Dunes State Park.

According to IdahoBirds.net, a comprehensive Web site for local bird lovers, the trip promises "expedition quality" birding - as long as you're not put off by a little "bitter cold and relentless wind."

Anna Webb: 377-6431