Great Backyard Bird Count This Weekend—

Snowy Weather Brings Back The Birds

By Dottie Evans

Last weekend’s nor’easter not only dumped two feet of snow in our backyards, it also brought the avian hoards flocking back to well-stocked backyard bird feeders — those same feeders that had languished for want of use during the warm and open January.

Snow and ice are back, just in time for the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) that takes place this weekend from Friday, February 17, through Monday, February 20.

The annual count is always scheduled over the Presidents’ Holiday Weekend to allow four days for data gathering. It has become a much-anticipated event for those who enjoy watching birds but do not want to get cold doing it.

While all of those house finches, mourning doves, cardinals, and blue jays are stoking up on millet and sunflower seeds, participants remain inside the house with binoculars and pencils poised. They count the greatest number of individual birds in each species that can be seen at one time and record the number for that count session. (This is to prevent counting the same bird twice.) A count period must be for at least 15 minutes, but it can be longer if desired.

After completing a count, the participant walks from the kitchen window to the computer with score card in hand, ready to send his or her data into the nationwide GBBC network. This is done by logging onto www.birdsource.org/gbbc.

Everyone can participate, from beginning bird watchers to seasoned experts, and a participant can submit any number of reports over the four-day period of the count — as long as each checklist includes only the numbers of birds in each species seen during that particular 15-minute period of time.

“This project has become a major source of scientific information about North American bird populations,” says Dr John Fitzpatrick, director of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. “It is a classic example of the vital role citizens and the Internet now play in understanding our planet.”

Dr Fitzpatrick failed to say, however, that the Great Backyard Bird Count is also a lot of fun. Checking on the website to see how your town is doing regarding number of participants or what birds these people are seeing is part of the reason why so many choose to participate.

For example, if there are Carolina wrens wintering over in Sandy Hook or if Newtowners are seeing lots of red-bellied woodpeckers, those are interesting bits of information that can be gleaned from the GBBC website graphs and charts.

In 2005, more than 52,266 checklists were submitted nationwide and 612 species were observed. Newtown and Sandy Hook were both among the top ten participating Connecticut towns, and in both towns juncos outnumbered all other species. Both towns reported seeing robins in mid-February, encouraging the rest of us to believe that spring would really come.

Just the mere possibility of seeing robins in February should be reason enough to participate.