Great Backyard Bird Count for Monday February 20, 2012

I counted the birds in my yard today for the Great Backyard Bird Count. The temperature was 48 degrees F at 9:45 am when I started observing and counting.

Today I saw an Allen’s Hummingbird. This species of hummingbird is found along the California coast during its breeding sesason and during the summer. While I see Anna’s Hummingbirds nearly everyday, seeing an Allen’s Humming bird is a rare occurance. I was excited to see another species during my count.

Record ID: S9945945
Observation Date : FEB 20, 2012
Start Time: 9:45 AM
Total Birding Time: 30 minutes
Party Size: 1
Skill: excellent
Weather: excellent
Snow Depth: No snow was present

Nearby Habitat(s):
deciduous woods
coniferous woods
grassland
suburban

Number of Species: 16
All Reported: yes

Checklist:
Turkey Vulture – 1
Mourning Dove – 4
Anna’s Hummingbird – 1
Allen’s Hummingbird – 1
Steller’s Jay – 1
Western Scrub-Jay – 2
Chestnut-backed Chickadee – 1
Oak Titmouse – 1
White-breasted Nuthatch – 1
California Towhee – 2
White-crowned Sparrow – 1
Golden-crowned Sparrow – 5
Dark-eyed Junco (Oregon) – 4
House Finch – 6
Lesser Goldfinch – 2
American Goldfinch – 1

Great Backyard Bird Count for Saturday February 18, 2012

I counted the birds in my yard this morning for 45 minutes for the Great Backyard Bird Count. The sun was shining and the temperature was 53 degrees F when I started counting. Here is the list of birds I submitted to GBBC.

Observation Date: FEB 18, 2012
Start Time: 10:00 AM
Snow Depth: No snow was present
Total Birding Time: 45 minutes
Location Type: Yard
Party Size: 1
Skill: good
Weather: excellent

Nearby Habitat(s):
deciduous woods
coniferous woods
grassland
suburban

Number of species: 14
All Reported: yes

Species Count

Mourning Dove 8
Anna’s Hummingbird 2
Steller’s Jay 1
Western Scrub-Jay 4
Chestnut-backed Chickadee 2
Oak Titmouse 1
White-breasted Nuthatch 1
American Robin 1
California Towhee 1
White-crowned Sparrow 2
Golden-crowned Sparrow 6
Dark-eyed Junco (Oregon) 8
House Finch 19
Lesser Goldfinch 3

Great Backyard Bird Count for Friday February 17, 2012

I counted birds in my yard this afternoon for 15 minutes for the Great Backyard Bird Count.

Start Time:  4:15 PM	Snow Depth: No snow was present
Total Birding Time: 15 minutes	Location Type: Yard
Party Size: 1Skill: goodWeather: excellent	Habitat(s): deciduous woods coniferous woods suburban
Number of species: 12	All Reported: yes
Species Count Mourning Dove 6 Anna’s Hummingbird 1 Western Scrub-Jay 1 Chestnut-backed Chickadee 1 Oak Titmouse 1 California Towhee 1 White-crowned Sparrow 3 Golden-crowned Sparrow 2 Dark-eyed Junco 9 House Finch 10 Lesser Goldfinch 1 American Goldfinch 2

What is the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC)?

The 2012 GBBC will take place Friday, February 17, through Monday, February 20. Please join us for the 15th annual count!

The Great Backyard Bird Count is an annual four-day event that engages bird watchers of all ages in counting birds to create a real-time snapshot of where the birds are across the continent. Anyone can participate, from beginning bird watchers to experts. It takes as little as 15 minutes on one day, or you can count for as long as you like each day of the event. It’s free, fun, and easy—and it helps the birds.

Participants count birds anywhere for as little or as long as they wish during the four-day period. They tally the highest number of birds of each species seen together at any one time. To report their counts, they fill out an online checklist at the Great Backyard Bird Count website.

As the count progresses, anyone with Internet access can explore what is being reported from their own towns or anywhere in the United States and Canada. They can also see how this year’s numbers compare with those from previous years. Participants may also send in photographs of the birds they see. A selection of images is posted in the online photo gallery.

Scientists and bird enthusiasts can learn a lot by knowing where the birds are. Bird populations are dynamic; they are constantly in flux. No single scientist or team of scientists could hope to document the complex distribution and movements of so many species in such a short time.

Scientists need your help. Make sure the birds from your community are well represented in the count. It doesn’t matter whether you report the 5 species coming to your backyard feeder or the 75 species you see during a day’s outing to a wildlife refuge.

The Great Backyard Bird Count is for Kids

Kids watch and count birds in your yard, a nearby park, or maybe at your school. Report what you saw by entering your bird list online.

By doing this, we learn what kind of birds are being seen in the winter and whether there are more or fewer of them than before. Learn more about how to participate.

You’ll have more fun if you learn more about birds.

Great Backyard Bird Count For Kids

Cornell Lab eNews – Great Backyard Bird Count

February 27, 2009 Great Backyard Bird Count Breaks All-Time Record With two days left to go for data entry, participants have submitted 90,505 checklists, smashing the all-time GBBC record. In the race for towns submitting the most checklists, Mentor, Ohio, leads with 259 checklists ahead of second-ranked Charlotte, North Carolina. Visit the GBBC website to see top-10 species lists, maps, and   images of some of the 609 species reported so far. Snow Goose Success Story In this year’s Great Backyard Bird Count, Snow Geese were the most numerous species counted. Did you know that Snow Goose populations were so threatened that in 1916, hunting them was banned in the United States? Since then, their populations have increased dramatically, and hunting began again in 1975 without slowing their population growth. Can You Hear the Difference between the Calls of Snow Geese and Canada Geese? Listen to Snow Goose calls. Listen to Canada Goose calls. Have You Ever Heard THIS Bird Sound? Manx Shearwaters are seabirds that dive for fish in areas as far as 600 miles from their nesting burrows! Listen to the “electric” sounds of these “wailers, screechers, and screamers” from the Cornell Lab’s Macaulay Library archive in this story from NPR’s Sounds Wild. Act Fast for a Great Offer with Project FeederWatch Join Project FeederWatch, a meaningful project that enables you to learn more about your feeder birds and contribute your observations to science. Sign up by February 28 for the remainder of this season and get next season free! The $15 fee ($12 for Lab members) helps cover the costs of materials, including a bird-ID poster. Learn more.

2008 Great Backyard Bird Count

Great Backyard Bird Count http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc

This year’s 11th annual Great Backyard Bird Count, led by Audubon and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, will be held Presidents’ Day weekend, February 15–18, 2008. Anyone in the United States and Canada can count birds from wherever they are and enter their tallies online at www.birdcount.org. These reports create an exciting real-time picture of where the birds are across the continent and contribute valuable information for science and conservation.

Each tally helps us learn more about how our North American birds are doing, and what that says about the health and the future of our environment.

“The GBBC is a great way to engage friends, family, and children in observing nature in their own backyard, where they will discover that the outdoors is full of color, behavior, flight, sounds, and mystery,” said Janis Dickinson, Director of Citizen Science at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

People of all ages and experience levels are invited to take part wherever they are—at home, in schoolyards, at local parks or wildlife refuges, even counting birds on a balcony. Observers count the highest number of each species they see during at least 15 minutes on one or more of the count days. Then they enter their tallies on the Great Backyard Bird Count web site www.birdcount.org.

The web site provides helpful hints for identifying birds. Participants can compare results from their town or region with others, as checklists pour in from throughout the U.S. and Canada. They can also view bird photos taken by participants during the count and send in their own digital images for the online photo gallery and contest.

“Literally, there has never been a more detailed snapshot of a continental bird-distribution profile in history,” said John Fitzpatrick, Director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. “Imagine scientists 250 years from now being able to compare these data with their own!”

Already, the count results show how the numbers of some birds species have changed in recent years.

For more information on how to participate, including identification tips, photos, bird sounds, maps, and information on over 500 bird species, visit www.birdcount.org.