The Great Backyard Bird Count

oarsman · Feb 11, 2008

From Feb. 15-18, the 11th annual Great Backyard Bird Count, sponsored by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Audubon Society will take place in backyards, parks, or wildlife refuges across Canada and the United States. It's a good way to discover birds in your neighborhood and help give scientists a picture of the winter bird populations. It only takes volunteering at home 15 minutes a day for 4 days. It's fun for kids too.

Here's the link to their site.

You count birds for 15 minutes or more each day and record your findings at http://gbbc.birdsource.org/gbbcApps/input Bird checklists: http://gbbc.birdsource.org/gbbcApps/checklist
You can also participate in the bird photo contest:

It's interesting to look at the results: top ten lists, maps, etc.

Soccer Mom · Feb 11, 2008

Ooh! Fun activity for my cubscouts! Thanks Oarsy!

awatkins · Feb 12, 2008

Thanks, Glenn!

eldragon · Feb 12, 2008

I'm going to do this. Thanks!

Just this morning, I started my day by saving a cardinal. He was in the mouth of one of my cats - and screeching his head off! I ran outside, sock-footed - and took after the cat - who was already being chased by my dog - and grabbed the cat - but he got away. So chased again, grabbed the cats tail - he let go of the bird and it flew off.

WHEW!

oarsman · Feb 12, 2008

<---- Here's some practice. How many birds are in my avatar?

Pam, You must be fast in socks! Your cat probably wants to help in the count, but it sounds like he only counts in negative numbers. That won't work.

joyce · Feb 12, 2008

Thanks for posting this. I'm going to have to do it. My backyard has been full of birds lately.

awatkins · Feb 13, 2008

There was a red-winged blackbird in our feeder yesterday! We see these guys from time to time, but very seldom in the feeder. That was cool.

Glenn, I'm trying to count those birds...what's the deadline? lol

oarsman · Feb 14, 2008

awatkins said:
There was a red-winged blackbird in our feeder yesterday! We see these guys from time to time, but very seldom in the feeder. That was cool.

Glenn, I'm trying to count those birds...what's the deadline? lol

You can stop counting those birds now, Anne. lol

I've been seeing a Great Blue Heron walking along the lake every evening this week. This weekend, I am going out on the lake to get a tally of the birds enjoying the water. I also want to find those woodpeckers I keep hearing in the woods. They are up in the trees above me (somewhere).

eldragon · Feb 15, 2008

Anyone else doing this today?

I just came in. I counted 25 American Robins, 1 hawk, 24 Northern Cardinals, 1 sparrow, 1 Great Blue heron, 10 Eastern Bluebirds and 2 Mockingbirds.

I was glad to spot that Heron in my back pond! Also nice to see that I will be adding all the Eastern Bluebirds to the state's list, which only reported 9 seen in the entire state of MS last year!

oarsman · Feb 15, 2008

I didn't have a lot of time to count today, but I tracked down a Red-Bellied Woodpecker that was high in the pine trees. I also counted 1 Great Blue Heron (he seems to visit every day), 1 Cardinal, 2 Robins, 2 Carolina Wrens, and 19 Herring Gulls over the lake.

Soccer Mom · Feb 15, 2008

I've got a zillion crows, 4 buzzards cleaning up roadkill, two redtail hawks, 15 cardinals, and far too many sparrows to count. Oh, and a blue heron and three wild ducks which live down by my stock pond.

eldragon · Feb 20, 2008

Soccer Mom said:
I've got a zillion crows, 4 buzzards cleaning up roadkill, two redtail hawks, 15 cardinals, and far too many sparrows to count. Oh, and a blue heron and three wild ducks which live down by my stock pond.

Yeah, unfortunately I see that other people like to put numbers like 100,000 European Starlings on their counts.

That kind of ruins the whole inventory idea of counting birds.

Even if you see a huge flock, how in the heck could it be 100,000?

joyce · Feb 20, 2008

I did it on Saturday and actually had one of the people in charge contact me because of my spotting hummingbirds. The guy said he's been birding in our area for five years and has only ever seen two. I've got them in the yard almost daily. I think because years ago I started planting plants that would attract birds and wildlife. Now I have a jungle. I think most people in our area are into pristine yards and I like mine wild, so they don't see as much.

eldragon · Feb 20, 2008

I usually have a family of 5 hummingbirds at my feeder.

I didn't know it was that unusual.

I have some flowering bushes as well.

joyce · Feb 20, 2008

eldragon said:
I usually have a family of 5 hummingbirds at my feeder.

I didn't know it was that unusual.

I have some flowering bushes as well.

I live on a barrier island on the east coast of Florida so I guess they aren't seen that often. With all the building I think much of their habitat has been lost to concrete. Most people around me chop down everything in their yards, then put a house in never replacing the plant life. When I use to own a garden center I couldn't believe the amount of people who would come in and say I want a tree or a plant that has leaves but they won't ever fall off. My response use to be, buy a fake one then.

oarsman · Feb 20, 2008

joyce said:
With all the building I think much of their habitat has been lost to concrete. Most people around me chop down everything in their yards, then put a house in never replacing the plant life. When I use to own a garden center I couldn't believe the amount of people who would come in and say I want a tree or a plant that has leaves but they won't ever fall off. My response use to be, buy a fake one then.

When we built our house, we had the builder work around the existing trees. I then added dozens of flowering bushes, holly, cherry and plum trees. The wildlife seem to love the jungle.

I am looking at some of the results from the Bird Count and find it interesting to see Mandarin Ducks from Asia in California (and Michigan? ) and the Brazilian Cardinal in Hawaii. I did some reading and found the Brazilian Cardinal was introduced to Hawaii in 1930 from South America, so that makes sense. The Mandarin duck apparently was introduced to California in the past, but some could be escapees from private collections or zoos.

I was obsessed with birds this weekend.

Gary · Feb 20, 2008

I grew up in a rural area where nearly every kid belonged to 4-H. I guess I was always the odd one, because instead of having a beef or hog project, I had a wildlife planting. My grandfather let me plant one acre with wildlife cover, food and nesting plants. The project thrived.

The North Dakota Game and Fish Dept. furnished all the plants, and the Dept. of Agriculture loaned their windbreak tree planting machine to do the planting. I had to maintain the planting by weeding, pruning and thinning until it was established enough to thrive on its own. That took about three years, and by that time, it was filled with birds I had never seen before.
It only takes a little effort to attract and support dozens of bird species.

Last year, I built a new house in East Texas, and have already begun planting bird attractions. We left as many oak and hickory trees as we could on our one acre.

Last fall, we had as many as 50 hummingbirds at our three feeders at any one time, and we're hoping some will come back to nest this year. My Martin house is ready to put up when the pole arrives, and I bought the lumber I'll need to build a couple of bluebird houses.

We should have lots of birds around this year.

Bird of Prey · Feb 25, 2008

Gary said:
I grew up in a rural area where nearly every kid belonged to 4-H. I guess I was always the odd one, because instead of having a beef or hog project, I had a wildlife planting. My grandfather let me plant one acre with wildlife cover, food and nesting plants. The project thrived.

The North Dakota Game and Fish Dept. furnished all the plants, and the Dept. of Agriculture loaned their windbreak tree planting machine to do the planting. I had to maintain the planting by weeding, pruning and thinning until it was established enough to thrive on its own. That took about three years, and by that time, it was filled with birds I had never seen before.
It only takes a little effort to attract and support dozens of bird species.

Last year, I built a new house in East Texas, and have already begun planting bird attractions. We left as many oak and hickory trees as we could on our one acre.

Last fall, we had as many as 50 hummingbirds at our three feeders at any one time, and we're hoping some will come back to nest this year. My Martin house is ready to put up when the pole arrives, and I bought the lumber I'll need to build a couple of bluebird houses.

We should have lots of birds around this year.

I'm in awe, Gary.

awatkins · Feb 27, 2008

Re: hummingbirds--one of my dad's friends has rows of hummingbird feeders all along her front porch. He said that sitting on that porch when the hummingbirds are feeding is like being inside an aquarium filled with hundreds of tiny fish darting everywhere.

Gary · Feb 27, 2008

A few years ago, the local paper had a feature about a guy who maintained over 100hummingbird feeders during the fall migration. I forget the numbers, but he went through hundreds of gallons of nectar every year. They showed a few photos, and in any one photo, you could see maybe 100-150 birds flying around.

I went through over 20 gallons last year, and my smallest feeders had to be filled three times a day during peak migration. I can't imagine what it was like to keep 100 feeders filled!

bluntforcetrauma · Feb 27, 2008

Got a male cardinal courting a female. They've been out there everyday for a week. The red against the whiote snow looks great. Kinda like drops of blood on a wedding cake.

The Great Backyard Bird Count

Salt water is the cure

Crypto-fascist

Not harboring illegal parrot

in a van down by the river

Salt water is the cure

I'm really shy...

Not harboring illegal parrot

Salt water is the cure

in a van down by the river

Salt water is the cure

Crypto-fascist

in a van down by the river

I'm really shy...

in a van down by the river

I'm really shy...

Salt water is the cure

Benefactor Member

Not harboring illegal parrot

Esquire