In this holiday time of cheer it’s fitting for us all to count our blessings — and for some of us to also count our birds.
That’s because the Christmas Bird Count is now in play. The count is on and you’re invited to join the tens of thousands of volunteers throughout the country participating in the Audubon Society’s 122nd Annual Christmas Bird Count that began last Tuesday on Dec. 14 and continues through Jan. 5 1922.
The Christmas Bird Count is the longest-running citizen-science survey in the world, and the data collected through the count allows researchers, conservation biologists, and other interested individuals to study the long-term health and status of bird populations across North America.
It is an early-winter bird census, where thousands of volunteers across the U.S., Canada (where Audubon partners with Birds Canada), and many countries in the Western Hemisphere go out over a 24-hour period on one calendar day to count birds.
Local counts will occur on one day, sometime on or before Jan. 5. Volunteers can pick the most convenient circle, or participate in more than one count.
There is a specific methodology to the Christmas Bird Count, but everyone can participate and it’s free. The count takes place within the Count Circles which focus on specific geographical areas. Each circle is led by a “Count Compiler,” who is an experienced birdwatcher, enabling beginning birders to learn while they assist. Count volunteers follow specified routes through a designated 15-mile (24-km) diameter circle, counting every bird they see or hear all day.
The Christmas Bird Count is valuable in monitoring the distribution of bird species. The agency can use these data to track changes in species populations and better manage our feathered resources.
In the 2015 count, for instance, Carolina wrens were detected in all but one of the state’s Count Circles – continuing a positive trend for a bird once regularly found only in Pennsylvania’s southeastern counties. The 2015 count also was able to document a pine siskin invasion and tracked cackling goose numbers in Pennsylvania at all-time highs.
CBC data have been used in hundreds of analyses, peer-reviewed publications, and government reports over the decades. Consult our bibliography page or use Google Scholar to search for research using CBC data. Audubon’s quantitative ecologist updates the CBC Population Trends periodically.
A 2021 study published in the Journal of Wildlife Management was conducted by the National Audubon Society and Clemson University’s James C. Kennedy Waterfowl and Wetlands Conservation Center. This publication showed populations of 16 common duck species that winter in the Southeastern U.S. have shifted northward over the past 50 years due to temperature changes attributed to climate warming.
With the very mild weather so far this winter, there may be many surprises found during these counts. For example, many more American robins are being found in some count circles due to the mild weather and abundance of soft mast. The data generated from the Christmas Bird Count is published each year on the National Audubon website and summarized each year in the Pennsylvania Society for Ornithology’s journal, “Pennsylvania Birds.”
Those who live within the boundaries of a Count Circle can even stay at home and report the birds that visit their backyard feeders. In either case, the first step is to locate a Count Circle that’s seeking participants and contact the local Count Compiler on Audubon’s website, www.audubon.org, to find out how you can volunteer.
In the meantime, those of us here at the Tatum household would like to wish all of our readers a very Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and best wishes for any other holiday your family might observe.
**** CANADA GOOSE SEASON REOPENS. Goose season here in our Atlantic Population Zone is set to reopen on Christmas Eve (this Friday, Dec. 24) with a much stingier limit of one single Canada goose per day (reduced from the 8 goose daily limit that ran during the regular season from Sept. 1 through 25).
It’s also far fewer geese than the daily limit of 5 permitted in the Resident Population Zone that encompasses the rest of the state during their late seasons of Dec. 13 through Jan. 15 and again from Feb. 4 through Feb. 26. Our much less generous late season in the Atlantic Population Zone runs for less than a month, closing on Jan. 22, despite the fact they we have no shortage of resident geese here in our neck of Penn’s Woods.
Goose hunting involves a lot of work from traveling to the hunting site to setting up and breaking down decoy spreads to hunkering down in a blind while working a goose call. I suspect a lot of waterfowlers might not think just one lone goose is worth that much effort. On the other hand, the late duck season here in our South Zone opened back on Nov. 23 and runs clear through Jan. 22 with a daily limit that remains 6 ducks combined species (see page 42 of the Pennsylvania Hunting and Trapping Digest for daily limit details).
**** Tom Tatum is the outdoors columnist for the MediaNews Group. You can reach him at tatumt2@yahoo.com.
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The Audubon Christmas Bird count is on - The Reporter
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