THE GREAT BACKYARD BIRD COUNT


 

The Great Backyard Bird Count

By PEGGY WILLIAMS AKA Birdie of Mississippi

 

Every February the National Audubon Society in coordination with Cornell Lab of Ornithology promotes an event called “The Great Backyard Bird Count”.  The good news about the GBBC is that it is free, fun and easy to do for most all age groups.  All that is required is a portion of your time (15 minutes or so) during a 4-day event in February counting birds in your backyard or even while you are on a walk in your neighborhood. You will then submit your counts online to birdcount.org. This event is open to “beginner” and “expert” bird watchers in the field.

 

This year’s GBBC was held Friday, February 14, through Monday, February 17, 2020.  I had never participated until this year, so I was excited to spend my time counting birds!  Due to the bird population declining, I wanted to take part in helping scientists with this year’s count.  According to the GBBC website over 160,000 people participated in counting birds last year.  These counts play a big role in the study of birds, weather factors creating change in their migration habits and the locations in which birds are found during the same time of the year.  Even though I didn’t participate this year, they also had a Photo Contest where you could submit bird photos to be judged. 

 

My personal count day was Saturday, February 15th.  It had been cold and rainy that week so cleaning and restocking had not happened at my backyard “birdie” area.  So I began my GBBC around noon washing and cleaning mucky leaves from my bird baths and refilling them with fresh cold water.  I was surprised at how quickly I began to see birds taking an icy dip in the water to clean themselves as I emptied out stinky, soggy sunflower seeds from my bird feeders and refilled them with dry black-oiled sunflower seeds.  As I was buzzing around doing my thing, all sorts of birds gathered and filled my trees and shrubs in my backyard.  As I watched them gather I was amazed at their numbers!  I stopped and took photos as I worked, just so I would be able to examine the photos on my computer later and see what I might be missing! I had over 300 birds in my count of male & female cardinals, woodpeckers, chickadees, finches, doves, titmice, robins, sparrows and blue jays!

 

I stayed outside working, watching and photographing for about 2 ½ hours that Saturday and later that day I submitted my counts at gbbc.birdcount.org!  Their website says that 173,239 checklists were submitted, 5,906 species observed and 27,270,156 individual birds counted for the 2020 Bird Count! I am excited that I labeled my counting station as “Birdie of Mississippi!”  It’s a teeny-tiny spot on the world map on their website, but I think that’s pretty cool! I guess that officially makes me a “bird geek” and I continue to “Look at the birds of the air…” (Matthew 6:26) and enjoy being a partner with science studying God’s wonders!

 

Please put it on your phone calendar to participate in the GBBC in February 2021.  I plan to send photos in for their Contest and also to have my Grands help me with my counting next year!

My photos may be viewed & “LIKED” on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest - “Birdie of Mississippi”.

E-mail: birdieofmississippi@gmail.com - Read my Blog @ http://www.birdieofmississippi.blogspot.com

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