19th Annual Great Backyard Bird Count Begins Friday, Feb. 12, 2016

Summary: The 19th Annual Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) begins Friday, Feb. 12, at midnight local time and continues to Family Day, Monday, Feb. 15.

19th Annual Great Backyard Bird Count promotional poster, featuring Anna’s Hummingbird (Calypte anna) photo by Michael Renzi: Michael Renzi/GBBC via Great Backyard Bird Count promo poster

The 19th Annual Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) begins Friday, Feb. 12, 2016, and continues through Family Day, Monday, Feb. 15, as a collaborative project led by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Audubon Society, with Bird Studies Canada and numerous international partners.

The 19th Annual Great Backyard Bird Count starts worldwide Friday, Feb. 12, at midnight, local time. As a citizen science project, participation is open to everyone everywhere on Earth. The minimum commitment is 15 minutes of counting on any one of the event’s four days. Participants select their counting site. There is no restriction on counting sites. Counts may take place in a range of rural, suburban or urban landscapes, from backyards to balcony gardens to parks and public lands.

The Great Backyard Bird Count is a fun, useful way for anyone and everyone to take on the valuable role of citizen scientist for one, two, three or all four days.

“Citizen-science projects like the Great Backyard Bird Count are springing up all over the world,” Jon McCracken, national program manager at Bird Studies Canada notes in the GBBC’s news release Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2016. “More and more, scientists are relying on observations from the public to help them gather data at a scale they could never achieve before. The GBBC is a great way to get your feet wet: you can count birds for as little as 15 minutes on one day or watch for many hours each day at multiple locations -- you choose your level of involvement.”

The Great Backyard Bird Count project’s leaders, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Audubon Society, along with main international partner Bird Studies Canada, expect to see El Niño-influenced changes in bird distributions during the 19th Annual Great Backyard Bird Count.

“The most recent big El Niño took place during the winter of 1997-98,” explains Marshall Iliff, leader of Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s worldwide, year-round bird tracking project, the eBird program. “The GBBC was launched in February 1998 and was pretty small at first. This will be the first time we’ll have tens of thousands of people doing the count during a whopper El Niño.”

El Niño-driven storms and unusual weather patterns disrupt bird habits and habitats. Just as marine mammals such as Guadalupe fur seals are venturing far beyond their normal ranges, so also are birds journeying beyond their traditional homelands.

“We’ve seen huge storms in western North America plus an unusually mild and snow-free winter in much of the Northeast,” notes the National Audubon Society’s chief scientist Gary Langham in January’s press release. “And we’re seeing birds showing up in unusual places, such as a Great Kiskadee in South Dakota, as well as unseasonal records like Orchard Oriole and Chestnut-Sided Warbler in the Northeast. We’re curious to see what other odd sightings might be recorded by volunteers during this year’s count.”

Participants in the 19th Annual Great Backyard Bird Count submit their counts online via a free account (https://secure.birds.cornell.edu/cassso/login?service). Setting up an account for new participants only requires providing name and email details and choosing a personal username and password.

“Get involved, invite your friends, and see how your favorite spot stacks up,” says Audubon’s Gary Langham about the 19th Annual Great Backyard Bird Count.

19th Annual Great Backyard Bird Count promotional poster, featuring white-breasted nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis) photo by Nick Saunders: Nick Saunders/GBBC via Great Backyard Bird Count promo poster

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

white-breasted nuthatch GBBC promo poster: Nick Saunders/GBBC via Great Backyard Bird Count promo poster @ http://gbbc.birdcount.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/GBBC-Promo-Posters_v1_FINAL.pdf

Anna’s Hummingbird GBBC promo poster: Michael Renzi/GBBC via Great Backyard Bird Count promo poster @ http://gbbc.birdcount.org/news/poster/

For further information:

"About the GBBC." The Great Backyard Bird Count > About.
Available @ http://gbbc.birdcount.org/

Marriner, Derdriu. "2016 Great Backyard Bird Count Runs Worldwide Feb. 12 Through Feb. 15." Earth and Space News. Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2016.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2016/02/2016-great-backyard-bird-count-runs.html

Monkman, Drew. "Keeping an eye out for backyard birds." The Peterborough Examiner. Feb. 11, 2016.
Available @ http://www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/2016/02/11/keeping-an-eye-out-for-backyard-birds