MANKATO — As an exercise in citizen science, the Mankato area’s contribution to the nationwide Christmas Bird Count turns out to be something like professional science: An exercise in repetition punctuated by brief moments of awe.

Much of the morning is spent counting pigeons, crows and other birds that it’s hard to get too excited about tallying up.

Then, as we’re driving along a little-used road near the Mankato Airport, someone spots a Cooper’s Hawk a few feet from the car. They’re not uncommon, but their striped orange breast and long tail lends them a regal aura.

A little later, Lucas Wandrie spots the silhouette of a large bird of prey maybe 500 yards off County Road 26. It’s the first of four bald eagles counted this Saturday morning.

And there are fascinating birds like the northern shrike, which makes up for its lack of talons by impaling its prey on thorns and fenceposts. Even the lowly crow gets recognized for its ability to use tools to catch prey.

The Christmas Bird Count is performed across the country from Dec. 14 to Jan. 5 by volunteers whose surveys of the different kinds and numbers of birds aid conservation efforts. Many of the 15 or so birders who participated in the Mankato version do this kind of thing for fun anyway.

Wandrie is among them. He’s a graduate student in ecology and biology at Minnesota State University and also participates in breeding bird surveys in the summer.

He’s the type of guy who sets his cell phone ringtone as the high-pitched whinny of a bird called the sora, and his text-message tone as the call of the spring peeper, a kind of frog.

Charlie Draper of Mankato is the driver, and participating in his third count. He calls himself a “real rookie” but seems to exhibit the most wonderment of the bunch.

Dan Hanson, of North Mankato, is the veteran and has been counting birds since the mid-’70s. He’s accumulated quite a bit of expertise and is, at least this morning, a quiet counter.

Everyone assembles at the North Mankato home of Merrill and Karen Frydendall at 7:30 a.m., and we’re off by 8:15. The counting area is a circle around Mankato extended seven miles in all directions, and each group gets a piece of it. Most of our area is northeast of Mankato extending past Eagle Lake, but it includes part of the Tourtellotte Park neighborhood and some of Hilltop Mankato.

We enter the countspace at 8:22 a.m. and the first bird, a crow, is spotted along Madison Avenue three minutes later. Draper issues a good-natured grumble: “I went bird-watching today so I wouldn’t have to drive on Madison Avenue.”

Most of the frigid, occasionally breezy morning is spent in the car, though the crew gets out at 8:31 and walks the Sakatah Trail for a bit. We spot crows, a white-breasted nuthatch, a downy woodpecker and a brief glance of another, marked down as an “unknown woodpecker.”

Wandrie does much of his counting by ear.

“For the most part, with birds it’s audio,” he said.

The count is not done in the winter because it’s easier to spot birds without foliage, though it certainly is, but because of a different tradition altogether. Ornithologist Frank Chapman started the first bird count in 1900 as a reaction to the Christmas “side hunts” of the day, where people would compete to kill as many birds as they could.

It is better, the occupants of this Toyota Yaris agree, to count them than to kill them.

The count proceeds around the roads of northeast Blue Earth County. Six pheasants as well as more flocks of crows, pigeons and house sparrows are added to the tally. A young red-tailed hawk whose tail is just starting to change color eyes a squirrel along County Road 12, and three bald eagles soar above the intersection of Riverfront Drive and Highway 14.

Upon seeing a variety of species along Ruth Street, the crew gets out of the car to count. Wandrie hears the “spit-notes” of a cardinal and spots a flicker and more woodpeckers, among others. The birds may congregate here because of an abundance of feeders and the open water running down Thompson Ravine.

The last spot to check is Good Counsel Drive, where a barred owl is spooked from the ridgeline. Like some other owls, this species sometimes hunts during the day.

In total, about 200 birds of 17 species have been counted in three hours this morning. The count, of course, is by no means exhaustive but the data collected are meaningful when compared with other groups across decades.

Wandrie reflects on some of the common species not seen, like juncos and waxwings.

Hanson says many types of birds have been declining by a few percent every year.

It’s impossible to gauge the health of birds based on this drive. The results of the nationwide count won’t be released in magazine form until next summer.

Even if they spent most of the morning counting crows and keeping warm, the crew seems satisfied just to have spent it in like company.