Great Backyard Bird Count is coming!

The Great Backyard Bird Count is coming up on February 12-15, 2010. It is an excellent opportunity for anyone to get out and count the birds. Then submit your sightings to the GBBC website. Your sightings help the scientists at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Audubon monitor bird populations and migration patterns. This is also a great project to get kids involved in and introduce them to nature. Participating is easy. Determine where you want to count the birds (your backyard, favorite park, national wildlife refuge, etc.) and count the birds for a minimum of 15 minutes. Count only the highest number of birds you see at one time. Don't add your counts you observe throughout the day. For instance, if you see 4 cardinals at 10:00, 8 cardinals at 11:00 and 6 cardinals at 12:00, you would enter 8 as your count for cardinals. That insures that each bird is counted only once. There are also prizes for photographs, so take pictures of your birds during the count and submit them to the GBBC. It is very interesting to see the results of previous counts. Take some time and explore the website and then get outside and count the birds on Feb. 12-15. Have questions? Call your local Wild Birds Unlimited store and ask them. Thanks for counting the birds!