The Great Backyard Bird Count starts in a few weeks on Friday, February 14th, and runs though Monday, February 17th!
For the GBBC, which is a free event, you just count the birds you see in your backyards, parks, outside your office/school window, or wherever you happen to be. You can do a stationary count or a traveling count, and can count for as little as 15 minutes. Birders of all ages and birding skill levels can participate. Every bird counted is important data for scientists monitoring our bird populations. The GBBC is a fun, free citizen science project which helps bird conservation!
The GBBC is a joint project of The National Audubon Society, The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and Canadian partner Bird Studies Canada. Last year’s Great Backyard Bird Count broke records after going global for the first time, and participants reported sightings from all seven continents, 111 countries and independent territories. More than 34.5 million birds and 3,610 species were recorded on the four count days.
I’ve seen quite a few Northern Shrikes in the Vermilion area, so keep a look out during the GBBC
For families with kids, there’s a page on the website with coloring pages and other resources. Grab your own buttons here to promote the GBBC. You can embed the button to put on your blog or website. There are buttons in English, French, and Spanish.
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is offering free bird songs of the five most-reported species during the annual Great Backyard Bird Count in North America. You can get them here. Also the Cornell Lab of Ornithology has just launched their new free bird ID app called Merlin. The app is very good and I recommend it for new and beginning birders/bird watchers, get it here.
Are you going to participate in this year’s GBBC?
Northern Hawk Owls can also be seen during the GBBC
Black-capped Chickadees are very common, so make sure they don’t get overlooked
Vermilion River Naturalist Society 