By Scott Boven
Volunteer Program Manager
The Nature Conservancy in Virginia
Charlottesville VA (434) 951-0585

Done entirely with volunteers, the Christmas Bird Count has been going on since 1900, as birdwatchers of all levels tally all the birds they can see (or hear) in one day in their area. The data collected forms one of the largest collections of bird-species information ever, a database that has proven to be extremely helpful to scientists in understanding the rise and fall of certain bird populations, what habitat birds utilize this time of year, etc. This annual census also helps detect changes in our environment.

To sign up, please visit the VSO website at www.virginiabirds.net then click on the link to the bird count in an area to find out the name and contact information of the organizer (compiler) for that count.

Thanks for helping count birds!

More background:

Sixty-one million birds
The Christmas Bird Count draws in some facinating figures. For example, one of the areas in the United States with the highest diversity of birdlife in late December is Corpus Christi, Texas. In 1995, volunteers there counted 217 different species of birds. Compare that with 82 species in northern Virginia near Centreville (and that was a record high; typcially it’s around 70). Another interesting figure is that in 1995, the total number of birds counted nationwide by 5,039 volunteers was 61,295,169!

From a nature-monitoring perspective, it’s important that this collection of data continue on for another 100 years-- and that’s where you come in. If you’d like to help out in this effort, you can. Don’t worry about your skill level. In many situations you don’t have to be able to identify all birds, or even many. You will be teamed up with experts, so you can learn and help at the same time. In this way, "citizen scientists" have made a tremendous difference.

Typically, each area surveyed is a circle, 15 miles in diameter, that’s divided into blocks each with its own people. Some people walk, while many people drive around to look for birds. You can do it any way you’d like. The event takes place in a 24-hour period, so you can include owls in your tally at night, if you hear any.

There is a $5 fee to participate, which helps defray the cost of producing that year’s special edition of "Field Notes," as well as entering the data into the national database. All in all, it’s a small price to pay for the adventure, fellowship, and for being a part of an annual nationwide effort to gather information about birdlife in the United States.