BIRD COUNT: How many birds does it take to change a lightbulb?
We don’t know either, but if you enjoy counting birds, we’ve got an event for you.
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Audubon Society will hold its annual Great Backyard Bird Count Feb. 15-18. The count gives citizen scientists a chance to help researchers create a “snapshot of the distribution and abundance of birds.”
People are invited to keep track of the birds they spot during a period of at least 15 minutes. Participants can count from anywhere in the world for as long as they wish on any — or all — of the four days. They will keep track of how many birds of each species they spotted.
For participants who are new to the count or who haven’t participated since before 2013, they will have to create a free online account to submit their checklists. Visit BirdCount.org to sign up or for more information.
Birdwatchers who participate in similar projects such as Project FeederWatch, NestWatch or YardMap may not have to create a new account.
“Scientists use information from the Great Backyard Bird Count, along with observations from other citizen-science projects, such as the Christmas Bird Count, Project FeederWatch and eBird to get the ‘big picture’ about what is happening to bird populations,” the GBBC website explains.
“The longer these data are collected, the more meaningful they become in helping scientists investigate far-reaching questions.”
In 2018, 6,310 total species were spotted; 176,905 checklists were completed and 192,456 people participated.
The top 10 most frequently reported birds in 2018, starting with the most frequent, are northern cardinals, dark-eyed juncos, mourning doves, American crows, blue jays, downy woodpeckers, house finches, black-capped chickadees, house sparrows and European starlings.
The top 10 most numerous species were, starting with the most numerous, snow geese, Canada geese, common murres, red-winged blackbirds, ring-billed gulls, mallards, European starlings, American coots, common grackles and herring gulls.
The United States is the country that submitted the most checklists.
Pennsylvania was the U.S. state that submitted the fourth most, submitting 5,953 checklists with 145 different species listed. The only states with more submissions were California, Texas and New York.
