WWWWF:
A Look at Wichita Falls on the Web

One person in Wichita Falls carried the load when it came to documenting the different birds flittering through the air.

Turns out, the one person had just been passing through.

One of the few birding events I know about is the Great Backyard Bird Count, and even then, I know very little. But while Web surfing, I came across the results. All the beaks fit to seek, so to speak, but then I noticed something about the 2007 results: all of the information came from one report.

Falls, meet Gail Morris.

The 49-year-old paralegal from Fort Worth had actually gone to Lake Kickapoo in search of another feathered fortune, the red-necked grebe (yeah, I struggled to come up with an appropriate rejoinder and came up empty)

"There was a bird that had been seen for the past month, and we had come down a couple of weeks earlier" looking for it, Morris said. "It's just an unusual bird for this area."

When she and a buddy finally spotted the li'l guy, well "If you’re going to report one bird, you might as well report on all the birds you saw in that day."

Morris was out in Canadian, Texas, when she talked to me on the phone Saturday. She and a friend were searching for lesser prairie chickens, an endangered species. She's been bird watching since 2003.

"I used to watch the birds in my backyard," she said. "Then I got addicted by seeing a snowy owl."

But Wichita Falls interest in the event seems to be on a downward glide.

According to the backyard organization, 2001 saw the most participants of the past decade, with as many as five reports being provided. One report has been used five of the 10 years; 1998 and 2002 had no participants fill out reports.

"I know a lot of people don’t do the Great Backyard Count," she said. "I think a lot of birders think it’s a little more amateur. I think it serves its purpose well."