If you're a bird counter and a crisp dawn brings the sounds of two Great Horned Owls hooting to one another across the Allegheny River in Armstrong County, your day is off to a pretty good start.

It gets even better later when you and four fellow bird counters spot the white heads and impressive wing spans of two adult bald eagles soaring several hundred feet above the murky, rain-swollen river.

And it becomes a stand-out day when a group member says the muddy prints on some railroad tracks were made by a fox, an animal whose straight-line walk would endear him to any drill instructor.

Those are some of the highlights of the hours Brady Porter, Kyle Selcer, Bobbi Skwarla, Todd Katzner and Erin Estell spent yesterday participating in the annual Christmas Bird Count of the Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania. The sky was partly cloudy when they started. It was snowing when they finished.

They focused their efforts in Murphy's Bottom, an 80-acre tract along the Allegheny River that includes a 20-acre lake. It is about 30 miles upstream from Pittsburgh. Capt. Samuel Murphy was given the land in South Buffalo Township in lieu of pay for his military service in the Revolutionary War and the French and Indian War.

The only permanent resident for many years was Marlin Miller, a reclusive woodsman whose life was chronicled for 23 years by former Post-Gazette staff photographer John Beale. Mr. Miller lived with his beagle, Skeeter, in a three-room wooden shack with no electricity, running water or telephone. He died at age 98 in 1999.

After crossing a set of railroad tracks, Mr. Porter, Mr. Selcer and Ms. Skwarla walked off in one direction. Mr. Katzner, director of Conservation and Field Research at the National Aviary on the North Side, and Ms. Estell, manager of Interactive Experiences and spokesperson for the aviary, took another path.

Mr. Porter, 39, of Hampton, an assistant professor in the Department of Biological Services at Duquesne University, has a doctorate in zoology. Mr. Selcer, 49, of Murrysville, is an associate professor of biology at Duquesne and director of its pre-medical program. Ms. Skwarla, 44, of Sarver, is a part-time biology student.

As they walked along a leaf-strewn, overgrown path with binoculars strapped around their necks, Mr. Porter pointed to a beaver lodge on the edge of the lake, the broken branches of an autumn olive shrub swatted down by a hungry black bear and green horsetails, also known as scouring rush, a plant that contains silica. Campers use it to clean cooking equipment.

When no birds could be seen on the wing or on a branch, Mr. Selcer pointed out invasive plant species along the path -- Japanese knotweed, tree of heaven (tree of hell is more like it with its multi-seed pods) and the multiflora -- and multi-thorned -- rose.

Ms. Skwarla called out the names of birds on her side of the trail as they darted past or bounded from branch to branch. She has been a bird enthusiast since she could first recognize them free-loading at a feeder her parents hung in the back yard.

Mr. Katzner, 38, of Shaler, who spotted the bald eagles and the fox tracks on the railroad rail, showed the group a forearm-sized tree along Knapp Run that had been worked over by a determined pileated woodpecker.

Ms. Estell, 29, of Squirrel Hill, a birder for 17 years, was the first to see a red-tail hawk on the utility pole. It appeared to be an extension of its perch.

Mr. Porter said the group spotted or heard 28 species and a total of 293 birds. They included 54 Canada geese; 12 American black ducks, 11 mallards, 26 common mergansers, two great blue herons, two bald eagles, one juvenile bald eagle, and seven red-tail hawks.

Also spotted were six herring gulls, two great horned owls, four red-bellied woodpecker, four downy woodpeckers, one hairy woodpecker, one pileated woodpecker, one northern flicker, seven blue jays, 14 American crows, 28 chickadees, and one white-breasted nuthatch.