Great Backyard Bird Count This Weekend!

This weekend, February 13-16, is the annual Great Backyard Bird Count, a joint project of the National Audubon Society and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The GBBC helps scientists determine where birds are spending the winter season. Volunteer projects like the GBBC and the Christmas Bird Count (and our own C&O Canal Count) are especially important for revealing continent-wide or regional population trends. A large set of volunteers can cover much more territory and gather much more basic data than a single scientist or team of scientists.

Participation in the Great Backyard Bird Count is easy:

• Watch birds for at least 15 minutes
• Record the birds you see and the number of each species
  
• Submit your sightings through the GBBC website

A more detailed explanation is available here.

You can submit as many checklists, from as many locations, as you like during the count period. Note that, despite the name of the project, you do not need to count in a backyard. You can submit counts from parks and wildlife refuges as well. The count's organizers want to record every species that is present in North America during the count period, so counting at birding hotspots and looking for rarities is encouraged.

If you like participating in the Great Backyard Bird Count, try eBird, a year-round citizen science project.