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This is the 77th year Bozeman has held its annual Christmas Bird Counting. The group started in 1905 and has continued ever since.

The Christmas Bird Count is the longest running citizen science survey. It originated when a group decided to provide an alternative to shooting birds as a holiday tradition.

“What people used to do was the Christmas bird shoot. They would go out and see how many species of birds they could shoot every Christmas,” said Paulette Epple, a Christmas bird counter.

The group covers a fifteen mile diameter circle that centers approximately at the Gallatin Valley Mall.

“You come out and you write down everything that you see and hear and you just do it for the one day. But you try and make sure it falls on the same date every year and it's within a defined area,” said Forrest Rowland, another Christmas bird counter.

This survey gives people an idea of the impact growth and climate has made to birds in the area.

“It's just an idea to kind of gauge our impact on the birds, but also natural influences on bird populations over years and years. And of course there's a social aspect and everybody gets together, has breakfast first, has lunch together all those sorts of things,” explained Rowland.

The bird that had the highest count... was the magpie.

“Sixty-one...we're going to get three hundred of those buggers today,” exclaimed the group.

This is a growing trend for nature enthusiasts everywhere.

“Probably kicked off as a, ‘hey let’s get together and do this thing.’ And then yay it turned from a meeting in a coffee shop in one place to thousands of count circles across the country and now in the world,” said Rowland.

Around forty people showed up to participate in the Christmas Bird Counting excursion just in Bozeman alone.

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1 in 4 people in Montana have not exercised outside of work in the past 30 days Recently, it seems that America’s companies are giving us more reasons to stay inside. You can now get your favorite food delivered to your door through sites like Seamless and eat it in bed while watching every episode of Friends on your computer thanks to Netflix. You don’t even have to make the trek to the convenience store—between services like Amazon’s same-day delivery and new apps that let you hire people to do your errands, you can run out of toilet paper in the morning and have a fresh supply waiting for you in the evening. Though all these services are certainly convenient, they make it harder for people to stay active. And with obesity and diabetes rates increasing year over year, it’s more important than ever for Americans to regularly engage in physical activity. The CDC conducts a phone survey every year and asks adults if they’ve had any sort of exercise outside of their regular jobs (from running to walking to even gardening) in the past month. If the answer is no, they’re labeled “inactive.” Using the most recent results (2012), data site HealthGrove crunched the numbers to see which areas of Montana need to get out more.

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The hopes of an era have been placed onto the boughs of towering trees from Montana forests when they became national symbols in Washington, D.C.

In 1958, Americans prayed for peace as the Cold War saw the proliferation of nuclear weapons and a spruce from Montana glowed outside the White House.

GREAT FALLS TRIBUNE

Selling Montana mystique: One wreath at a time

In 1989, a tree from Montana was a symbol of freedom as the Cold War began to end with the fall of the Berlin Wall.

And 19 years later, Americans again hoped for peace and better times ahead as lights shined bright on a Montana tree outside the U.S. Capitol.

“Montana Tannenbaum,” a new exhibit at the Montana Historical Society, highlights those three trees from Montana that have been national or Capitol trees. The trees are slices of life, a glimpse into eras in Montana history and industry, world events and holiday celebrations.

‘From the Christmas Tree Capital of the World’

Called “Ike’s Tree,” in 1958 a 100-foot Montana spruce (trimmed to 75 feet) from the Kootenai became the 26th National Christmas Tree and glowed outside the White House.

That year, Dwight Eisenhower was president, life expectancy was just shy of 70 years, the homicide rate was 4.5/100,000. The country’s first satellite went into orbit, a B-47 accidentally dropped an atomic bomb in South Carolina, the Army inducted Elvis Presley and unemployment in Detroit hit 20 percent during what became known as the Eisenhower Recession. The post-World War II baby boom ended, and the John Birch Society was founded. The U.S. Supreme Court ordered Little Rock, Ark., schools to integrate. The world population was 2.9 billion. The peace sign debuted to protest atomic weapons.

Red Stout, a sawyer, wrote to apply for the job of cutting the tree “for Ike and the White House” and “the honor to do the job to me would be the greatest, for Ike is the greatest president we have ever had.”

The exhibit includes a hard hat from Libby’s museum such as Stout would have worn.

Selected for its “near perfect proportions,” the tree took root in 1878, years before the tradition of states providing Christmas trees to Washington, D.C., began in

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The U.S. Senate late last week passed a bill known as the National Bison Legacy Act that would establish the animal as America’s national mammal. It’s the third time backers of the proposal have tried to move the bill through Congress, but the first time it’s passed either chamber.

It’s not an attempt to elbow aside the bald eagle as America’s symbol, says Dave Carter, but rather one to recognize the role bison have played in the making of America.

“Through all of our history, the hoof print of the bison is deeply embedded in our landscape,” he says.

Carter is executive director of the National Bison Association, which, perhaps a bit ironically, represents bison-raising ranchers who would prefer more of you throw bison burgers on the barbecue the next Fourth of July, add ketchup and relish, and eat their choice for the national mammal on the national birthday.

Given the federal protections extended to bald eagles, are they not concerned that a designation as the national mammal could lead to similar laws protecting bison?

Carter laughs. It’s not the first time he has fielded the question.

“If Benjamin Franklin had had his way, the national symbol would have been the turkey,” Carter says. “I don’t think we’d have stopped eating them. The national tree is the oak, but last time I looked, there’s a lot of oak furniture out there.”

The National Bison Association and its rancher-members are not alone in their backing of the National Bison Legacy Act. They have partnered for several years with the Wildlife Conservation Society and the InterTribal Buffalo Council, which represents 56 Indian tribes in 19 states, to lobby Congress for the designation.

MORE>>>Helena Independent Record