Christmas Bird Counts: A Fun Activity for Children and Adults in Winter

Christmas Bird Counts are a tradition now in the US and Canada and in England. They are sometimes done very seriously by professional ornithologists, but they can be done by anybody and it is a good excuse to get the children and some of the adults out of the house. We do this every year and it's great fun. Warning, this paragraph is a little upsetting to the tender-hearted: Christmas Bird Counts were set up on Christmas Day as a substitute for the custom in the 18th and early 19th centuries of going out with a shotgun on Christmas Day and blasting away at anything that moved or that didn't move fast enough. The birds were then brought home and baked into meat pies. This was probably also an excuse to get the men and boys out of the house, nevertheless it was upsetting to some people even in the old days that anyone would celebrate Christmas by killing things. In any case, it is now illegal to kill songbirds (including crows and ravens), raptors (hawks and eagles), and wading birds (herons and cranes) in most areas and people now would be horrified to think of eating them. So we have the Christmas Bird Counts. That's the end of the upsetting part.

Modern Bird Counts
There are a number of websites which collect bird count information and even amateurs can participate by uploading their statistics to the research facilities for publication. This makes you feel as if you are participating in science research and gives a focus to the activity. If you don't feel like following their instructions, you can do your own bird count and still have a fun time rambling around the neighborhood.

Organized Bird Counts
Some of the organized bird counts are now done after the holidays, because the researchers can actually get more people to participate when everybody is not visiting all their relatives and friends at the Christmas holidays. These formal counts are done on certain dates. It is often possible to call the local birdwatchers' society in your area and tag along with really knowledgeable ornithologists and you would be amazed at what is living in your area that you would never see without somebody like that to point it out to you. In that case you may be asked to keep the records while they spot and announce what they see. That type of bird count is organized by area, with certain people assigned to cover the most important habitats, and they go out well before dawn and stay all day and into the dark. It's a long day but you can volunteer for only part of it if you like.

The Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) at Cornell
This Bird Count is organized by Cornell University, and it's free and easy and a lot of fun. It is scheduled this year for February 12-15, 2010. You can check out their website at Great Backyard Bird Count which shows what information they would like you to collect for them. They provide charts which you can download to write the information on and a list of the birds in your area -- just give them your zipcode or town name in the US or Canada. They also would like you to describe the habitat for each area that you check. Their website is at GBBC Data Forms. You will be able to enter the data later at bird count . This last page is not available right now because it is not yet the time to enter the data. You can also mail in your results.

Audubon Christmas Bird Count
There is also a Bird Count organized by the Audubon Society. It is much more formal and they would like you to pay something to participate, though it is only about $5 for amateurs. It's even free for people who are doing counts at their own birdfeeders and for people 18 years or younger. Participating is a little complicated, you have to register in advance. Still, if you are interested, this is a good place to ask to volunteer with professional birders and that can be very interesting and, dare I say it, educational.

The Audubon bird count is scheduled this year for December 14, 2009 to January 5, 2010 and of course you can do it any day that you have time. They try to schedule things so that there will not be overlap among the various observers. Their website is at Audubon Christmas Bird Count. They also have a more complicated chart to use for collecting data about the habitat, including weather and temperature.

Both of these sites will provide you with a chart that includes all the birds that are expected to be seen in your area, which narrows it down a lot and makes it easier, so it is good to print those out. But these lists can very hard to use by people who are not normally birdwatchers because the birds are listed in the order of their evolutionary relationship to each other, which many people do not know. When you see the birds while you are driving in the car (a lazy and fun way to do it), it takes longer to find the bird name on the chart then to just write it down and figure out later what order they go in. In that case just use a chart like the one suggested below. But it helps to print out the forms for your area, and it is best to fill out the forms before you upload the information on the websites, because then it will be in the correct order.

Making your Own Chart:
Just draw vertical lines on a sheet of notepaper, and have 2 columns across the top.

1. Name of bird (species name)

2. number of birds, giving the highest number observed at any one location. Use a tally, but make sure you can tell the difference between 11 (eleven) and 11 (two).

When you are writing on your own chart, you can just write down what you think it is and then later look it up to see the exact species. Feel free to draw pictures. When I go around with my friend, we both spot, while I drive and he writes things down. He doesn't know birds very well though, so what he spots is often "little brown tweety bird" which is his word for any motley-colored song bird, which unfortunately, we will never be able to figure out exactly what that was. On the other hand if he spots a hawk, I can look and see if it's a harrier hawk or a kestrel, and then I can tell him which one to write down. I know I can figure out which species of harrier hawk it is because there is only one kind of harrier hawk in this area--a marsh hawk. Also, you can write down birds that you hear, if you are certain of the identification. That is the easiest way for some kinds of warblers that hide in the bushes, and for crows that are way up in the treetops. I can't tell warblers apart, but I can tell common crows, fish crows and ravens by their voices, even when they are just a black shadow in the branches.

Driving, Walking, and Birdfeeder Counts
Each of these methods of observation has its advantages and disadvantages. The websites that collect data would like you to count the birds at your birdfeeder. Although it is inevitable that some informal counts will overlap, that is least likely when people count the birds in their own backyards. This type of observation often gives a very detailed and accurate list of birds in a certain area which would not be accessible even to professional birders who obviously can't be looking in everybody else's backyards. For the walking counts, you will hear birds that you cannot hear while you are driving in a car. For these, it is especially helpful to take binoculars and a bird book. You can often stop and look them up on the spot. And for the driving counts, people often drive around to all the best birding habitats that they know of, including local ponds and marshes, or any parks or forests in their area. This is likely to give a wider selection of species, even though it gives only a brief and incomplete list for any one area. This is the most fun way in my opinion.

Even though a lot of formal Christmas Bird Counts are now done after the holidays, it is still a fun thing to do on any free day that you have. Christmas Bird Counts are fun to do formally or informally, and if you upload your information on the websites, it helps give a broad picture of the health of the natural system and any broad changes over time.