Great Backyard Bird Count

Birders take note: February is "National Bird-Feeding Month" and the Great Backyard Bird Count will be on Feb. 17-20 this year. (Peter Lewis/Unsplash)

Let’s all thank the calendar makers that February is so short. In just a few weeks, winter will be over. Most birds will be happy it is over, too. The typical sparrow or cardinal that comes to a backyard feeder weighs about as much as a quarter. They spend virtually every waking moment looking for food (just like teenagers) and may consume 15% of their body weight on a cold winter’s night trying to stay warm.

February is “National Bird-Feeding Month” as noted by the National Bird-Feeding Society. If you are new to bird feeding or just want to learn more about feeding birds, you can go to the Society’s website for more information (www.birdfeeding.org). You will find several educational pamphlets to improve your wild bird feeding experience, including a list of the top 10 tips for a better bird feeding experience, a bird food preference chart, a bird feeder preference chart, brochures on keeping birds safe and a bird identification sheet.

Bird feeders filled with seeds will help some birds make it through the coldest nights. To find out an approximate number of the birds that have survived over the winter and before many migrant birds start arriving from the tropics. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology operates the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC). This year it will take place Feb. 17-20 and you can do it from the comfort of your living room if you want to. It is an annual four-day period when bird watchers create a snapshot of where the birds are across the continent. Anyone can be a bird watcher for those four days. A ‘backyard’ can be anywhere you happen to be: a schoolyard, a local park, an apartment balcony or a wildlife refuge.

Doing the count is easy—all you do is count the birds you see at any location. The highest number of each species seen on any of the days is recorded. Then you go to www.birdcount.org to record your list online. There is a photo contest for those interested.

The GBBC helps everyone prepare for their trip to the backyard, whether they choose to watch birds only around their home or make the effort to see which birds are using public lands. The website is full of tips of all kinds, including information on bird feeding; how to use binoculars; how to make your yard bird-friendly; and how to identify birds, especially those tricky, similar-looking species. There are even tips on how to be a bird-friendly family.

The results of each survey are displayed on a variety of maps. You can easily see the distribution pattern of any bird species. You can also see the same map change over time as the bird’s mapped distribution changes over the years. You can compare your sightings to everyone else in your state.

Every year, more people do the count and more people do more than one count. I do a backyard count and I count a two-mile-long section of river near my home. Last year, more than 234,000 reports were sent in from the U.S. covering 682 species.

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.

This event was developed and managed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society, with sponsorship from Wild Birds Unlimited store owners.

I have added three new videos about bird feeding to the Greener View YouTube channel. They cover the best seed types to feed birds, the best types of bird feeders to use and a taste test I ran to determine the best ingredient to fake suet. Check them out in the playlist for Chapter 13: Gardening for Wildlife.