The Great Backyard Bird Count

The Great Backyard Bird Count started today and goes through Monday February 21^st. Since I am relatively new to the birding world, this will be my first year to participate! It is sponsored by The Cornell Lab of Ornithology and The Audobon society.

American Goldfinch

Here is some information to get you started:

• You can participate all four days of the GBBC or just one day.
• You need to count for at least fifteen minutes (certainly longer, if you wish)
• You will need to submit a new checklist each day.
• You can submit more than one checklist per day if you count in more than one location.
• You do not have to stay in your backyard. You can go to a park or any other area that you enjoy watching birds. (Be sure to submit a new checklist for each location.)
• You can also do a “traveling count”. For example, if you are birding on a trail.
• You can print out a checklist of all the birds that you would normally see in your area by inserting your zip code on the website.
• And last but not least, they even have a photo contest, where you can win prizes! I hope to try to get in on that one!

Northern Mockingbird

You can go to the GBBC website to find out everything you need to know about it! They have a nice instructional video to explain how it works, and you can submit your checklist from this site.

Brown Creeper

You may be asking, why would we want to participate in this event? It is an opportunity for all of us to be involved in helping to gather information about the birds we love to watch. This aids the scientists in learning about where the birds are at this time of the year. Considering the very mild winter that we have had throughout most of the United States, it will be interesting to see what kind of effect it has had on the birds’ winter habits & migration.

I apologize for getting this out so late. I had hoped to get it posted earlier today, but then life happened! I hope you get to have some great birding the rest of this holiday weekend!