Great Backyard Bird Count

[silverflight8]

Next weekend is the Great Backyard Bird Count, which aims to harness citizen science and observation to create a detailed snapshot of bird activity and presence, globally. It's a challenge meant to encourage new birders and also those who aren't birders, just interested or wanting to be involved in the outdoors.

All you have to do is observe and record birds for 15 mins, between Feb 12-15, and then upload the count.

Here is the eBird link with information: https://ebird.org/news/great-backyard-bird-count-2021

If you have never birded, the Merlin app is super easy to use.

I bird both by going to places, and also by standing at my window. I live in a city, my window faces an alley and then another building's back, and the "yard" is really just a short distance to a concrete wall, but I see birds there (5 species so far this year!). So don't despair if you don't have ideal conditions. In fact, I think one of the reasons the GBBC runs is because while there is good coverage of popular birding spots, there are many dead zones where there is no record at all.

Comments

[superbadgirl]

Interesting. I'll try to remember to do this, though birds of my neighborhood are all sparrows, starlings, crows and scrub jays for the most part. A robin here and there, but not that often, surprisingly. I have a bird feeder a friend gave me when I moved and in all the years I've lived here I've never put up a pole to hang it on. *bows head in shame*

[silverflight8]

Aw, I think Cornell (and researchers who use ebird data) are interested in data for all birds, not just the notable/rare ones. They emphasize this a lot in terms of general usage - you can submit "incidental" checklists, which are just any birds you see, and "complete" ones, where you make an effort to identify and count all the birds that you can (not all of them that are there - that's impossible haha). I think we (as humans!) want to know not just if our favourite and high charisma wildlife is doing well, but also, if house sparrow populations are declining, increasing, staying still, expanding their regions, changing behaviour, etc. It's important to know where birds are - and aren't! Otherwise your data is incomplete. So they really do want good coverage of all birds.

hehe do you have a pole to hang it on at least?