The 2007 Great Backyard Bird Count - February 16-19, 2007
Even though birds are a very popular and well-studied group of animals, much about them still remains to be discovered. For example, where are different kinds of birds at different times of the year? Flight gives birds amazing mobility on both a world-wide scale and on a local scale. We know that migratory birds go south for the Winter, but there is a lot to learn about their specific destinations. And some birds make smaller non-migratory movements seasonally or even daily.
The Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) is a way to capture data about winter bird locations using the internet and thousands of people all over the country. The data gathered is an invaluable resource for scientists trying to understand the big picture about bird populations, which in turn helps us learn how to protect them.
The Great Backyard Bird Count for 2007 is happening February 16-19. Participating in the count is fun, free, and easy. If you already watch the birds in your yard at feeders or a bird bath, this is another way to help them besides providing food and water. How easy is it? From the GBBC web site:
IT’S AS EASY AS 1, 2, 3!
1. Plan to count birds for at least 15 minutes during February 16–19, 2007. Count birds at as many places and on as many days as you like. Just keep a separate list of counts for each day and/or location.
2. Count the greatest number of individuals of each species that you see together at any one time, and write it down.
3. Enter your results on the Great Backyard Bird Count web site!
There are more tips and details on the GBBC web site which is very well-written and easy to understand. Last year I had lots of fun submitting several counts to the GBBC and watching the totals for different states and cities change in real time. (I submitted the only Austin-area records for Solitary Sandpiper and Green Heron, both of which I found by the Town and Country playing fields.)
I will be doing at least one GBBC count in our neighborhood on Sunday, February 18 by the Town and Country playing fields. If you're interested in joining me to help or just to see some neat birds, send me an email!
You don't have to wait for the GBBC to help count birds. If this sounds fun and worthwhile to you but you need more time to learn the familiar birds, or if you cannot participate on February 16-19, don't worry. You can count birds in a very similar way and contribute the data to eBird all year long, whenever you want. I've been entering neighborhood bird data into eBird for a couple years and it has been a blast. Not only does eBird add your data to a national database, it makes your data available to you so you can remember what you saw and start learning about local birds in a very real and immediate way. Give it a try!
Mikael Behrens
birdingonbroadmeade@gmail.com
Related links
The Great Backyard Bird count
http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc
eBird
http://ebird.org/content/about/whatisebird.html
[back to birding home]
|
