The National Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count begins its 120th year on Saturday, Dec. 14.
About 90 counts across Pennsylvania – each covering a 15-mile-wide circle for a one-day period and led by a compiler, who organized the volunteer counts will submit the results to Audubon – will be part of the hemisphere-wide effort that will continue through Jan. 5.
The CBC is one of the longest-running wildlife censuses. It is one of just two large existing pools of information notifying ornithologists and conservation biologists about rising conservation needs.
“The Christmas Bird Count is a great tradition and opportunity for everyone to be a part of 120 years of ongoing community science,” said Geoff LeBaron, CBC director, who has led the community science effort since 1987.
“Adding your observations to 12 decades of data helps scientists and conservationists discover trends that make our work more impactful. Participating in the Christmas Bird Count is a fun and meaningful way to spend a winter for anyone and everyone.”
When combined with other surveys such as the Breeding Bird Survey, the CBC provides a picture of how the continent's bird populations have changed in time and space over the past hundred years.
The long-term perspective is vital for conservationists. It informs strategies to protect birds and their habitat, and helps identify environmental issues with implications for people as well.
For example, earlier this year, Science published a study using decades of CBC data to describe the grim picture of a steady decline of nearly 3 billion North American birds since 1970, primarily as a result of human activities.
CBC data have been used in more than 300 peer-reviewed articles.
A new feature for this year will be CBC Live, a crowd-sourced, hemisphere-wide storytelling function using Esri mapping software. The “story-map” will ask users to upload a photo taken during their count as well as a short anecdote to paint a global picture of the CBC in real time.
The 119th CBC last year included a record-setting 2,615 count circles, with 1,975 counts in the U.S., 460 in Canada and 180 in Latin America, the Caribbean, Bermuda and the Pacific Islands.
It was the ninth-straight year of record-breaking counts.
A total of 79,425 observers in the field and watching feeders tallied more than 48 million birds representing more than 2,600 species different species, more than a quarter of the world’s known avifauna. About 5 percent of the North American landmass was surveyed by the 2018 CBC.
The CBC began on Christmas Day 1900, when Frank Chapman, founder of Bird-Lore (precursor to Audubon magazine), proposed a new holiday tradition that would count birds during the holidays rather than hunt them.
Conservation was in its beginning stages in that era, and many observers and scientists were becoming concerned about declining bird populations.
For more information and to find a count near you visit the Christmas Bird Count website.
Counts are open to birders of all skill levels. There is no fee to participate.
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December 13, 2019 at 07:00PM
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Christmas Bird Count begins Dec. 14 across Pennsylvania - pennlive.com
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