Audubon, Cornell Ask All Birders to Take Part, Feb.15-18

The National Audubon Society and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology are asking every bird enthusiast across North America to help celebrate the 5th anniversary of the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) by counting birds Feb. 15 - 18, 2002.

Families, individuals, classrooms, Scout troops — everyone with an interest in Birds — are asked to take as little as 15 minutes on any or all of the four GBBC days to count the numbers and kinds of birds they see. They can count in their backyards, schoolyards, local parks, nature centers and sanctuaries, or other favorite birding location, including right out the office window. Reports are submitted over the Internet and compiled almost immediately, for all to view in the form of animated maps, graphs, and charts.

“Our message for this landmark year of the Great Backyard Bird Count is simple and straightforward: help us continue building this important index of the birds we all so enjoy,” says Frank Gill, Audubon's vice president of science and conservation. “Only with the help of birders across the continent will we be able to monitor changes in the distribution and abundance of birds and determine measures necessary to ensure their protection.”

This year marks the 5th anniversary of the immensely popular event. More than 100,000 citizen-scientists have taken part in GBBC. Their reports have helped researchers track winter finch invasions, investigate the correlation between snow cover and northerly distributions of American robins, and document “the arrival of spring” by following movements of blackbirds as they begin their migrations back to their breeding grounds.

“Given the many challenges now facing our nation, it’s more urgent than ever that we continue to focus on those things most important to us,” say John Fitzpatrick, director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. “Few things are more precious than our natural heritage. The Great Backyard Bird Count is an easy and enjoyable way to cast your vote, in a sense, to help ensure the birds and the habitats upon which they depend will be around for generations to come.”

In 2001, 53,343 checklists were submitted, representing every U.S. state and Canadian province. Some 4.5 million individual birds were reported totaling 442 bird species.

GBBC has enabled scientists to collect and screen data to make it as useful as possible. These snapshots of winter bird populations provide general information about trends across the continent, while adding to the data on bird population distributions. GBBC occasionally sends up flags indicating the need for further study and in a number of cases, they have shown us fascinating local phenomena.

Instructions are available at the GBBC web site, as are results from previous counts. Visitors to the site can listen to bird songs, see bird images, and learn about species of conservation concern. Material for classrooms, tips for bird feeding, and a how-to for creating bird-friendly yards are also at the site.

For more information, visit the GBBC web site at www.birdsource.org/gbbc, or contact either organization — the Cornell Lab of Ornithology at 800 843-2473 in the U.S. or (607) 254- 2473 outside the U.S., or mmckown@audubon.org

Founded in 1905 and supported by 600,000 members in more than 500 chapters throughout the Americas, the National Audubon Society conserves and restores natural ecosystems, focusing on birds and other wildlife, and their habitats, for the benefit of humanity and the Earth's biological diversity. For more information, click: www.audubon.org