This diary’s an invitation to turn off your computer and spend a day outside contributing to citizen science - the 107th Annual Christmas Bird Count (CBC), scheduled over a three-week period from December 14th to January 5th. You do not have to know a lot about birds to participate. My first time out, my job was to write down what others told me, and to keep count of the crows.
CBCs were first founded in 1900 by ornithologist Frank M. Chapman. Back then, there was a tradition in certain circles to have shooting competitions where the winner was the guy who shot the most birds. Just kind of thing Dick Cheney would go for. The bird counts were first organized as a sort of protest to the shooting orgies. In the intervening century, it’s grown into something entirely different.
Cross-posted to ePluribusMedia
In 1900, there were 25 count areas and 27 participants. It has now expanded to over 2,000 count areas and over 50,000 participants. Each one is a circle 15 miles in diameter, broken down into separate territories. Run by the US by the National Audubon Society, the CBC is the oldest and largest wildlife survey in the world, and thus an invaluable long-term database. CBC surveys are conducted mostly by amateur volunteers, and sometimes include access to fabulous natural areas, including private lands, not normally open to public access.
When the CBCs started, Teddy Roosevelt, one of the nation's leading conservationists of all times, had just been elected President, a reflection of changing public attitudes. (My how the Republican Party has changed in 100 years!) It was the dawn of a period of protection and conservation in various forms.
Fashion trade, primarily in ladies' hats, was decimating bird populations. The Passenger Pigeon, one of the North American continent's most abundant bird species only a few decades earlier, was nearing extinction. During Roosevelt's presidency, 230 million acres were protected to various degrees in National Forests, National Parks, Wildlife Refuges, and so on. A series of laws and treaties were enacted and entered into, including the very important International Migratory Bird Treaty of 1918.
If you’re in the Americas somewhere, there’s probably a count near you. (More on how to hook up with one below.)
From the Audubon Society’s FAQ:
Will I be doing this by myself, and do I have to be an experienced birder?
CBC participants are organized into groups--or field parties--by the organizer or Compiler of each Count. Each field party covers a specific area of the 15-mile diameter circle on a specific route. And anyone is welcome to participate, since Compilers arrange field parties so that inexperienced observers are always out with seasoned CBC veterans.
Do I have to join a field party, or can I count the birds at my feeder?
As long as you live within a designated CBC circle, you are welcome to count the birds at your feeder. All you'll need to do is contact your local Compiler so that you may report your results on the Count Day.
The canary in the coal mine is our most famous metaphor for indicators of environmental problems. In a more general sense, data about birds (which are mostly migratory) can tell us a lot about our world today, and how it has changed over time. CBCs, containing over a century of observations, are a useful source of information. There's a few sites with CBC databases online, which can return various sorts of data. Curious about the demise of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers? Wonder about the westward expansion of the exotic species Eurasian Collared Dove? There just might be information to be found.
The most comprehensive database is run by the USGS, where results to be found include:
- A relative abundance map.
- Numerical estimates of trends and average counts on CBC circles by region.
- Annual indices of abundance, presented as graphs of annual indexes for specific regions where the species occurs
- And more.
Audubon has a page that will display the current year's results as they come in. Historical results are available from an Audubon tool that can return maps, graphs and tables - but it doesn't go back to the beginning. Audubon's official CBC website also includes 2004 photo gallery, summaries since 1997, comments on observed trends. There’s a search for the $5 fee-based count circles, but it looks like it only gives the date, without providing contact information to the organizer. (It also looks like contact might be added in time - but all the links I checked are dead now.) Many counts are not fee-based and those aren't listed in this database, so it's incomplete. In addition to the 50 states, you can search Canadian provinces, Mexican states & Pacific Islands there. Here's links for the 50 U.S. states:
- New York
- North Carolina, coastal North Carolina (2 counts)
- North Dakota
- Central Ohio
- Oklahoma
- Oregon (pdf)
- Pennsylvania (3 counts, scroll to bottom), Western Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania (Erie)
- Rhode Island (not found, but not for lack of trying)
- South Carolina
- South Dakota
- Tennesse (Knoxville only), Tennessee (2 counts)
- Texas (Click the CBC tag - Diary editor rejected the direct link!
- Utah
- Vermont
- Northern Virginia (contacts, no dates), Virginia (partial, 10 counts)
- Washington
- West Virginia (partial), West Virginia (contact, no schedule)
- Wisconsin
- Wyoming (partial), Wyoming #2 (partial)
Some counts charge a $5 fee for participation (it’s used for publishing the results), many don’t.
Tomorrow, I'll post a diary with a bunch of bird pictures with the same poll, see if the numbers go up with a little prompting...