Great Backyard Bird Count

Welcome to the 2011 Great Backyard Bird Count! Starting February 18 and running through February 21 (4 days), the Cornell Lab of Ornithology is asking birders all around the country to grab their binoculars and their checklists and count as many birds as they can. This is a great way not only to have an excuse to watch birds, it’s also a chance to make a very important contribution to the birding world in the name of science. The best part? It’s completely free!

Last year Oregon birders turned in a total of 1,203 checklists and saw a total of 189 species. Unfortunately, those numbers are actually down from the previous year
(1,420 and 197, respectively). I’m sure that we can do better this year!
Here’s how it works:

Step #1: Between February 18 and 21, plan to count birds for at least 15 minutes a day for 1, 2, 3, or all 4 days. You can count for as little as 15 minutes on a single day or — for
you hardcore birders — count all day long for all 4 days. It’s completely up to you!

Step #2: Count and tally the greatest number of individual birds for each species you see. For example, let’s say you see
a flock of 20 Juncos in the morning and then later that day you see a flock of 15 Juncos. You would just tally 20 Juncos. Don’t combine all the individual birds for the day, just the greatest number of each species at any one time. Pretty simple, right? You simply do this for every bird species that you see during your counting time.

Step #3: After you’re finished counting for the day, go to http://gbbc.birdsource.or/gbbcApps/input to report your findings.

Follow these 3 easy steps for every site you count at. You can count at a single site or you can go to as many of your favorite birding spots as you like. Backyards, nature parks, neighborhood parks, wildlife refuges… anywhere you want to count! You can turn in as many checklists as you like.

Let’s see if we can turn in 1,500 checklists this year (just to give you an idea, New York turned in 5,719 checklists last year)! Let’s also see if Oregon can break the 200 species mark in 2011!

If you have any questions about how the GBBC works or how to participate, please feel free to email Seth Reams at nepobirds@q.com. We also encourage you to visit www.birdsource.org/gbbc and explore the website and results from years past.