What’s That Bird?: Christmas Bird Count

Summary: This is a special What’s That Bird? episode about the long-running citizen scientist project from Audubon called the Christmas Bird Count. Listen and find out how you can make this one of your holiday traditions!

 

For our hearing impaired listeners, a transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean.

 

Show Notes:

Audubon Christmas Bird Count Maps: https://audubon.maps.arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html

Audubon Christmas Bid Count Home: https://www.audubon.org/science/christmas-bird-count

Phoenix Valley Christmas Count Sign-up:

Kathy and Rowyn Balman nerdyforbirdies@gmail.com

Nerdy for Birdies:

https://educatingchildrenoutdoors.com/nerdy-for-birdies

***Due to unforeseen personal matters Mo Walters will be handling The CBC for Phoenix Area this year. You can reach her at Molina.Walters@asu.edu.*****

Transcript

 

Host Voice: Welcome to The Feathered Desert’s What’s That Bird? A three-minute glimpse into the birds we share this amazing desert landscape with.

 

Kiersten: Hello, Feathered Deserts listeners. This is Kiersten and I wanted to talk to you about the Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count. It’s a citizen science project that you can participate in right here in the Phoenix Valley!

 

            The Audubon’s Christmas Bird Count is the nation’s longest running community science bird project. It began in the late 1800’s as an event called the Christmas “Side Hunt”. Groups of participants would choose sides and whoever came back from the hunt with the largest pile of feathered, or furred, animals won. This was the time that conservation was in its infancy but naturalists were already beginning to understand that populations of some animals were in decline in the wild. So, in 1900 an ornithologist named Frank M. Chapman, an early officer of the Audubon Society, proposed a different holiday tradition, a Christmas Bird Census! Instead of shooting birds, they would count them!

 

            Thus began the Christmas Bird Count! Each Year this project runs from December 14-January 5 and is open to anyone that wants to help count bids! When you participate in this bird count all the information you gather about the birds you are seeing in your chosen locations goes to Audubon to be compiled. This data provides ornithologists and scientific researchers with information about the long-term populations of birds in North America. According to the Audubon website, “To date over 300 peer-reviewed scientific papers have resulted in analysis done with Christmas Bird Count data.”

 

            That’s a lot of papers and that’s a lot of research about birds!

 

            This season the 2022-2023 Christmas Bird Count in the Phoenix Metro Area will be coordinated by Educating Children Outdoors, Nerdy for Birdies, and the Maricopa County Parks Master Naturalists. There is a 15-mile circle that has been chosen for the count including Mesa, Chandler, Gilbert, and Tempe. They will be offering three zoom meetings about how and where to count before the count officially starts and will also offer a Question and Answer day. Kathy and Rowyn Balman are in charge of distributing information about how to participate in our area and can be reached via email at nerdyforbirdies@gmail.com.  If you do not live in the area but would still like to participate, you can always take a day trip to one of the sites in the radius or check out the Audubon Christmas Count Website, go to the maps page, and look for a radius near you. There are active sites all over the Phoenix Valley.

 

            Check out the show notes for this episode for a list of all the websites. We have perfect winter weather for birding in Arizona so grab your binoculars and get out there!