The Great Backyard Bird Count

Have you ever participated in The Great Backyard Bird Count?

Starting next Friday, February 12th you can count the number of birds you see in your backyard and name them by type. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is one of the sponsors of the event along with Audubon and Bird Studies Canada.

There are many resources for families and classrooms participating including a section on kids and the Backyard Count. There is even a section for educators.

There's advice on tricky identifications- birds that are close in how they appear. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology even has an online guide to birds you can check out.


Inside Birding is a resource for new birders to learn how to identify birds. I've had a post on this in my drafts since summer and I figured this would be a great time to mention it. There are videos on size and shape, color pattern, behavior, and habitat. Take a few moments to learn a little more about identifying birds. The videos are very good.

So, I'll admit to you now that we have no bird feeders at our house. Even wild birds are high maintenance. I mean once you start feeding them you have to keep going and they eat a lot. I've got my own little birds who are hungry constantly (it seems) and I don't need to add bird feeders to the mix.

However, we have a lot of trees in our yard and we have a lot of bird families. So, we just count the ones that enjoy our habitat even though we don't feed them!

Once you submit the data you collect, then you can have fun graphing the data that comes in from this year's count.

So join the fun!