"I don't know if I can do this," said a tense voice from the back of the plane. It was a small plane - a Cessna 207 for those who know something about such things - with just enough room for the five of us plus the pilot. Enough room, yes, but by no means roomy. Would claustrophia signal a loss of one of our team before we even got started?

A window of time, good weather, and a sense of adventure had prompted me and a friend to organize the first-ever Matinicus Island, Maine, Christmas Bird Count. For those who don't know, the CBC as birders like to call the count, is an annual ritual that has been going on for over a hundred years in some places. On a given day two weeks before or after December 25, teams of volunteers set out to count all the birds within their part of an area encompassed within a 15 mile diameter circle. Thousands of such counts take place across the Americas involving more than 50,000 people. The count results are tabulated into a massive database by Audubon that can be used to track changes in the distribution and abundance of wintering birds. It is this noble purpose that we birders use as justification to our wives, husbands, kids, in-laws, and bosses for our desire to venture away from other duties to participate in a Christmas Bird Count.

Luckily for us, most of them know the truth. Christmas Bird Counts are really an excuse for a little slice of adventure, exploration, the thrill of the unknown and a connection to the ebbs and flows of the natural world.

I just wanted to know what might be out on a small windy island 10 miles off the Maine coast.

Matinicus Island has a small year-round population (20-30 people) that is swelled in the summer by people-from-away and former residents who must leave in the winter so their high-school age kids can go to school (there were 6 kids in the elementary school last year) or so they can find work. The island has no store or restaurant, only one small bed and breakfast, and official state-run ferry service was basically discontinued in the 1970's. The ferry was replaced by an air service that shuttles the mail, residents and their groceries and other supplies, and the occasional visitor. It was our discovery of this reasonably priced air service that prompted the idea of the Matinicus Christmas Bird Count. We could get on the island in the morning and fly off in the evening, a schedule that wouldn't interfere with even the busiest holiday preparations.

That's how five of us found ourselves strapped into a Cessna 207 on a Thursday morning in December (the 15th to be exact) listening as one of our teammate's apprehension surfaced.

After switching my seat in the front with my claustrophobic teammate's seat in the back, Rod the pilot gave us a quick safety briefing (if you have to throw-up, don't get it on my seat) and we were off over the icy Atlantic for the 12 minute flight to Matinicus Island.

As the plane made a wide arc and began to descend toward the island, the pilot turned toward us again. When we get down low it may get a little bumpy and it may look as if I am trying to commit suicide by running us into a barn, he said. The barn is right in front of the runway so we have to go over it to land. Don't worry.

We were on the ground in no time with nary a scream from any of us. The five of us - Cindy, Dave, Louis, Noreen, and me - had only a small pencil-drawn map and a memory from an afternoon visit that I had made to the island 25 years ago. Of course, the island is only about 2 miles long and a mile wide so we weren't too worried.. The count started officially at 8:45 as we began walking up the road towards some houses in the center of the island.

We did see some birds. Forty-eight species to be exact. Forty-four of those were Boreal birds including 26 that have at least 25% of their breeding population in the Boreal. There were the flocks of Roman-nosed Common Eiders, the Bald Eagles, the brown-toned immature Northern Shrike, a few Common Redpolls, the garish Ring-necked Pheasants that were thick as dirt. There were the small flocks of White-winged Scoters and Long-tailed Ducks and Bufflehead bobbing in the more sheltered coves and some Razorbills and Black-legged Kittiwakes offshore in the wind and haze. There were even some surprises�a beautiful look at an adult Northern Goshawk, a few lingering American Pipits and Swamp Sparrows and Winter Wrens.

We met some people too. There was the man who runs the generators and fixes things and with whom we had in common a number of friends back on the mainland. Later we met his wife who was flying back to the mainland to pick up her high-school age son for the Christmas break. And the innkeeper who heads up the island Democratic committee and thinks regularly about moving to a quieter island 400 miles off of New Zealand because it's become too busy on Matinicus for him. There was the lobsterman with the whalebone arch (scavenged from a dead minke whale that washed ashore) over his gate who remembered the days when Great Black-backed Gulls were almost gone from Maine and whose grandmother was an avid birder. And there was the woman we met at the airstrip whom we helped load boxes of groceries in her car from the plane. She was a committed bird feeding enthusiast and had established a persistent flock of Northern Bobwhite on the island.

The sun had set before our plane arrived to take us home. A smaller plane had left 15 minutes earlier filled to its capacity with two of our team and the woman headed back for her son. The remaining three of us stood on the edge of the frozen dirt strip, scanning the sky, listening for the whining buzz of an approaching plane and wondering whether we would be tramping in the dark over to the innkeeper's place for the night. But the plane did arrive and we took off over the ocean under a full moon shining like a beacon. Huddled into our down parkas and hats we were quiet as we flew back towards the mainland. As the motor droned in our ears, we gazed out over a band of moonlight bright and cold on the water stretching away to the edge of the sea.

Yup, it was great to be Christmas Bird Counting again.