The Great Backyard Bird Count takes place for four days surrounding a weekend each February. When combined with the Christmas Bird Count and Project FeederWatch data it gives a good picture of the state of our winter birds.
We’ve participated in this project since 2001. I don’t think we’ve ever missed a year, even if we were out of town.
When we happened to be in North Carolina during the count week, we counted birds down there instead. It was interesting to see birds different from those we have here in New York.
Each year these data are collected makes the data more valuable and meaningful. Results from checklists submitted are available on the web.
I like this project since this simple project has probably one of the largest participation rates of any community science project. It’s good to feel part of such a large effort. As we’re counting birds those four days, I like to think about all the other people all over the country and the world who are all out observing birds (or at least looking out their windows).
Since 2014, you can use the eBird mobile app for the GBBC. It’s so much easier and probably more accurate since the elapsed time counting was done automatically.