Join in on the Great Backyard Bird Count!

What's the Great Backyard Bird Count? It's an event from February 13-16, 2009, where anyone can submit online a list of birds that they see in their backyards.

You can count birds for 15 minutes or all day if you want. Then, tally the highest number of birds of each species that you see together at any one time.

But, what's cool is that you submit your counts online at the Great Backyard Bird Count web site. And then you can see "real-time" results from your count and every one else's counts instantly on this Web site!

It's a lot of fun to see your birds and to see the list of birds that other participants are counting.

This information also helps those who monitor bird populations and movements. In fact, it can even be used to show the affects of climate change. If birds in large numbers are living further north during the winter, what does that mean? We can only guess until we have enough data for enough years to show trends rather than just a rare occurence.

So, take the opportunity to join in on the count. It's citizen science that's helpful for the birds and for us. Plus, what else do you have to do on in the middle of February?