An “ornithologist” is a person who studies or is an expert on birds. This weekend a lot of bird watchers will try being an ornithologist when they take part in the Great Backyard Bird Count.
The Great Backyard Bird Count for 2017 is this weekend, Friday, February 17, 2017 through Monday, February 20, 2017. It looks like it will be great bird counting weather.
What is the Great Backyard Bird Count? The annual event links citizens with scientists to collect important data about the birds in our backyards. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Audubon Society launched the Great Backyard Bird Count in 1998. It was the first online citizen-science project to collect data on wild birds.
More than 160,000 people of all ages worldwide join the count each February to create an annual snapshot of the types of birds and where they are located. The data is then used by scientists to understand trends in bird population, habitat changes and shifts in migration patterns.
if you have at least 15 minutes that you can spare on one or more days of the count, you can participate. You simply tally the number and kinds of birds that you see. There is even a downloadable tally sheet for your convenience generated by your location (click here for the tally sheet. You can count from any location, anywhere in the world, for as long as you wish!
All the information to get started is here on the Great Backyard Bird Count website.
Here is some great bird counting music from the Counting Crows of course!…
Photos: www.birdcount.org
