I just had someone ask me if the GBBC is showing a decline in birds this year, since last year we had over 11 million individual birds reported, and this year we're at less than 10 million.  I haven't done any real analysis of the bird sightings yet, but don't think we should be worrying too much.

Here's why.

Last year there was a huge flock of American Robins in west Florida, and over 2.5 million robins were counted there (the same flock counted a couple times).  This year we have just over 500,000 robins reported across the whole continent.  So the overall count last year was influenced by this huge flock of robins.  This year, there weren't any huge flocks of robins reported on the count.  That doesn't mean that robin numbers were down.  Maybe there weren't any huge flocks anywhere, and birds were scattered where they are harder to count.  Or maybe there was a big flock somewhere that nobody counted.  Its hard to know.

So the short of the story is, that the overall number of birds counted is not a good indicator of how many birds may or may not be out there.  Its more an indicator of how many people are counting.  Or in the case of the robins, an indicator that sometimes there are just spectacular things going on out there!

Last night around 11pm I watched the number of GBBC checklists submitted totals pass last year's record of just over 81,000 checklists.  With a couple more days to enter bird sightings, we've already set a new record for checklists submitted.

About the same time I also got a report of two White-tailed Ptarmigan seen during the GBBC at Vail Pass in Colorado.  That turned out to be species number 624 for the count, setting another new record for number of species seen on the GBBC.

Thanks to everyone who has participated so far, and congratulations on another record-setting GBBC!

One great way to see how the species lists compare from one year to another is to look at the Browse Maps page of the Map Room.  There you can see which species were reported each year on the GBBC.  By scanning down this list, you can see which birds were missed this year, as well as species reported on the GBBC for the first time this year. 

New species on the GBBC so far this year include Scarlet Ibis, Ivory Gull, Black-tailed Gull, Masked Duck, Northern Jacana, Great Skua, Olive-sided Flycatcher, and Akohekohe. 

Hello everyone

Well we had another very successful GBBC. There was some concern we would fall far short of our species total, but we pulled a proverbial rabbit out of our collective hats and ended up with 62 species, only 4 short of our 2007 record of 66 species.  We were well covered for province, and am very very pleased with the participation this year. We had some nice highlights which saw Saskatoon capture the Bohemian Waxing capital of the galaxy, we ended up with over 11,000 individuals, including 2 flocks of 4000 and 1500 respectively. Common redpoll numbers were above average, and Evening Grosbeaks…well they staged one of their best appearances in recent memory, nice to see. We ended up with 144 Eurasian Collared-doves, but some most likely some were counted several times of the weekend, but other locations where they are known to be did not report.

It was a great weekend and am looking forward to next years count

Every year the good folks doing the GBBC get blessings from God, the Cosmos, or however else you see it.  Latest case in point, Mike of 10,000 Birds and his GBBC Miracle.  Read all about it here. 

Hope y'all were able to enjoy your own GBBC miracles.  If you haven't entered your GBBC sightings yet, do it now and get even more of that good karma for yourself.

Last September, a family of three Bean Goose showed up at Shemya Island in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska.  They've been there ever since.  Unfortunately, it doesn't look like anybody saw them during the GBBC, so we can't count them.  The only birder stationed on the island and likely to have seen them left the island right before the GBBC for a much needed vacation.  The birds were last seen February 10.  So while they were most assuredly still on the island during the GBBC, unfortunately we couldn't get them on the count!

There are other rare birds that were reported during the GBBC, and fortunately we'll be able to get them into the count--since someone actually saw them.  There are other rare birds that have been around lately that we're still trying to determine if anyone saw during the count.  Hopefully, somebody saw the Crescent-chested Warbler and Eared Trogon that have been hanging out in Madera Canyon this winter, though it snowed up that canyon during the count weekend!  We're still missing reports of many resident birds that had to be around during the count as well, including Gunnison Sage-Grouse, Lesser Prairie Chicken, and White-tailed Ptarmigan.  There's also a whole slew of native Hawaiian honeycreepers that are only rarely reported during the count.  If anyone wants to fund an expedition, maybe we can go find those birds in person next year!

It is always fun to see if we can round up sightings of rare or less-often seen birds.  And if we can't, to at least know that they are out there.  Somewhere.  Perhaps waiting to be counted next time!

Whew!  Thanks everyone for a great count weekend.  Hope everyone had fun. 

We're pretty much on track with where we were last year with checklist submissions.  With 60,000 turned in so far, there are at least another 20,000 or so to go.  Everyone has until the end of the month to get their checklists in, but don't procrastinate!  If you haven't submitted all your counts for each day yet, do it as soon as you can.

What if you're done?  You've submitted a count for every bird you saw every place you went each day last weekend.  Well, for one thing you can help us reach our previous record of 623 species counted by helping us round up sightings of birds that were seen last weekend but not reported yet to the GBBC.  If you know of birds that others saw last weekend, that don't show up on the count for your state, province, territory, or the whole count, encourage the original observers to submit a count for that species.  If you can't get them to do that, send us an email and let us know the details of the sighting and we'll see what we can do!

Here's to a great count last weekend, and a great finish over the next two weeks!

The first year I worked on the GBBC (2005), I saw on the map that we didn't have any sightings from Nunavut.  I scrambled around and finally found Clare Kines's blog.  Not only did he submit a sighting of the only bird really around his place up there in the frozen north (Common Raven), he also volunteered to help us review any unusual reports that might show up from there as well.

Clare is a retired member of the R.C.M.P living in Arctic Bay Nunavut, on the north end of Baffin Island at 73 degrees North. Raised in Roblin Manitoba (it only seems as though he was raised by Ravens) he spent 24 years with the RCMP before retiring and building and operating a Bed and Breakfast along with his wife, Leah, in Arctic Bay.  He is thrilled that he was able to double the CBC species total in Arctic Bay this year... to two.  He spends much of his birding energy watching Corvus corax.

This year we're still hoping to get more species and checklists from Nunavut, as of right now, its all ravens!

If you are reading this before midnight on Monday of the count, especially if you haven't counted yet, turn off the computer and go over to a window or go outside and count some birds!  While you have until the end of February to enter your count, you have to actually do the count by the end of today (Feb 18).  So, go out and count some birds.

We can always use more counts of owls, so if you know you have owls in your neighborhood, tonight might be a good night to take your sweetie or kids out to look for them.  If you have a recording of an owl call, you can play it and the birds will often answer or come close to investigate.  For more info on owling, check out owling.com.

Well, darkenss has come and Day 3 is over for the province. We have logged 50 species so far, 7 more than yesterday, but still way off the mark of last years record of 66 species. Many people from many communites are participating, including some new locations...welcome everyone. We are now over 10,000 Bohemian Waxwings, with no other community in North America even close to our numbers. Other notables are Evening Grosbeaks with their best showing in recent memory, today they were reported from several new locations. We are now over 100 Eurasian Collared Doves, this is nice to see as we have had a very harsh winter, with temperatures plunging to -50C for days and days on end a few weeks ago, and temperatures in the province have been bitter since November. For them to survive our winter this year should bode well for a good breeding start, this species was also noted for the first time in Regina. We have one more day to go to find 16 new species, but I am not sure we will be able to pull a rabbit out of our hat this time, but miracles do happen.

Have a great productive and fun day 4, and for those of you like us, have a great holiday Monday

Every year, we find a few really rare birds during the Great Backyard Bird Count.  My favorite story so far is of the first state record Ivory Gull found on Saturday in South Dakota.  Check out the photos online here.

About three years ago, Rob Fergus asked me to take over as regional reviewer for the District of Columbia, and I have been doing it ever since. DC is one of the easier assignments since relatively few checklists are submitted (only 64 last year) and the city is geographically compact. No records have been flagged so far for DC, so my job has been watching for potentially-confused species.

This year DC seems to be behind last year's pace in terms of checklists submitted and species reported. The highlight so far is Red-breasted Nuthatch, reported on the GBBC in DC for the first time since 2003. I used to enjoy seeing these northern cousins of the local White-breasted Nuthatches on my winter walks in DC's National Arboretum.

In my hometown of Highland Park, NJ, large flocks of blackbirds returned about a week prior to the GBBC. We usually see them early in the morning when they circulate around the various yards with bird feeding stations. On most mornings, Common Grackles have predominated, but this morning Brown-headed Cowbirds seemed most numerous.

Hey, it happens to all of us.  Our fingers move faster than our brains.  We space something.  We make a mistake when we enter our GBBC sightings or even when identifying a bird.  What do you do if you make a mistake on the GBBC?

First of all, the only way we can change the checklist you submit is to delete it or delete the report of a species on it.  So, here's what you do:

1) Go ahead and submit a new checklist, but just with the count of the actual bird you saw.

2) Send an email to us (use the contact us link at the bottom of the GBBC page) asking us to delete the mistake.  It is best if you can give us the following info--your submission number, your location, the email you used to submit your checklist, and what species to delete.

That's pretty much it.  We'll forward your request to our regional reviewers and ask them to delete the mistake from your original checklist.

Parents who have little children know that if the kid keeps throwing his food on the floor to get attention, the best thing to do is just ignore it, and not to encourage it by picking up the food over and over.

Here at the GBBC, we'd love to ignore some similar juvenile pranks, so as not to encourage it.  But since a few folks use the bad behavior of others to go on birding email lists and question the validity of the GBBC, we have to respond in public.

Every year, some prankster somewhere enters a bogus checklist of outrageous sightings, and folks on local birding email lists think this means the GBBC is broken or worthless.  But rest assured, we generally find these problems and though it takes valuable time, our volunteer bird sightings reviewers eventually get to them and delete the bogus reports.  So, the GBBC is not broken.  We just have a few crackpots out there who think it is funny to make someone waste their time cleaning up after their mess.

Hello, well day 2 is in the books and as a province we are doing ok. The weather is still co-operating, however, temperatures are expected to drop to about -16C for day 3, not bad but hey it is still February. We have 43 species, but are still missing some known birds such as Varied Thrush, Coopers and Sharp-shinned Hawk, Great Grey Owl, and Willow Ptarmigan. Last year we had 66 species but the winter of 2007 was so much warmer allowing for many species of waterfowl to over winter on open water. As I stated earlier Bohemian Waxwings and Eurasian Collared Dove continue to make headlines during this count period, but it appears that Evening Grosbeaks are making their best showing in years. This is encouraging as higher numbers are also being reported in Eastern Canada as well. We had a Northern Hawk Owl just east of Saskatoon, it has been present for much of the winter, but what makes this remarkable is it is about 300km south of its southern most winter limit (a nice find for birders who cannot make it up north).

Have a great day 3 everyone

I was birding this morning at the Valley Nature Center in Weslaco, Texas, (think Green Jays, Clay-colored Robins, and Plain Chachalaca) and met a group of birders doing a count for the GBBC.  They were members of the Llano Grande Birding Club.  Other club members were doing counts around town.  They invited us to have a countdown lunch with them at the rec center at the Llano Grande Resort mobile home community. 

Here's a photo of us birding at the nature center--what the photos don't show is the frantic pace of the birding.  

Here we are eating lunch.

Here I am with Robin Doughty (r), professor of Geography at the University of Texas and with club member Norma Coe (l) and club president Wylene High (r).

Lots of fun!  Its great when folks can get together and make the GBBC a community event. 

Twas the night before the Bird Count
and all through the house,
the birders were sleeping,
just dreaming of grouse.
They had mapped out their day
to find a Blue Jay,
or perhaps watching owls cathing their prey.
Their scopes were all ready,
their binos were too
don't forget your tripod, your camera, your guide,
or your coffee, a sandwhich or your favorite hot stew.
You can count from your window, our car or on foot,
and if you get lost remember stay put.
What this weekend will bring,
may remind us of spring,
Just remember have fun,
as you are watching a Hun,
and when the weekend has passed,
we will tally our birds,
in the hopes that we have massed,
more species this year than years in the past.

Judy Kolo-Rose shared some photos of the redpolls and one Pine Siskin at her feeder.  Notice the siskin in the second photo--you need to look carefully through finch flocks to pick out the odd ones.  You never know when a Pine Siskin or a Hoary Redpoll will join a flock of Common Redpolls.

Judy didn't make the error of calling them a "ton of redpolls," but many people do. Since healthy, well-fed redpolls weigh roughly half an ounce, it would take 32 of them to weigh a pound, and 64,000 of them to weigh a ton. Which states will have literally a ton of redpolls on the GBBC? We'll know soon!

To help us promote the GBBC, we have just released a brand new bird game--Eagle Eyes.  See how observant you are, send your score to your friends, and see how your scores stack up.

For the sake of full disclosure, on my first time through the game (with 30 seconds per photo) I got 20/25 to score as a FLEDGLING.

Can you top that? 

Click here to find out!

Here's a "behind the screen" peek at the GBBC.  Meet our 2008 GBBC bird sightings reviewer from NJ:

Patrick Belardo, from Piscataway, NJ, credits his father with encouraging his interest in birds, bugs, and anything else nature-related. As a volunteer naturalist with New Jersey Audubon Society, he leads birding trips to various hotspots around New Jersey as well as dragonfly and butterfly walks. When not leading trips, Patrick participates in NJ Audubon's Grasslands Breeding Survey, Piedmont Survey, and other citizen science projects. He's also a member of the Sandy Hook Bird Observatory World Series of Birding Team. Birding has allowed him to experience nature in such great locations as California, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Belgium, and Costa Rica. Read about his latest adventures at his blog - The Hawk Owl's Nest.

You can tell which blogger is into documenting rarities for the GBBC. There has been a Slaty-backed Gull in the Superior Landfill in my neck of the woods for a while. I don't know if anyone braved the cold to see if it was there this weekend, but it was at least as of the 6th. Let's keep our fingers crossed that it sticks around or at least shows up SOMEWHERE where people are counting!

My biggest thrills with the GBBC are getting numbers for my treasured common birds, like chickadees. And also birds that eat chickadees.  My friend Mike McDowell has been doing some interesting work with eBird trying to figure out shrike numbers in Wisconsin mean. Check out the February 9 and 10 entries in his blog. It will be exciting seeing how many shrikes turn up on the GBBC, and where they are.

I've finally rounded up a full set of 91 regional reviewers to help review the unusal bird sightings reported during the GBBC this weekend.  We're ready to roll!

If you see something unusual during the count, the computer will ask you to confirm that you really meant to report that species.  Then before the report can be added to the count totals, a reviewer will have to take a look at it first.  If there is any question about your sighting, the reviewer will email you for more details.  This helps us keep the data as free from errors as possible.

So don't get miffed if the computer eats your best bird sighting.  It just means a someone in your area is going to have to take a look at it.  And since the reviewers are all volunteering their time to do this, please be patient with them.  They'll get to your sighting eventually!

The Great Backyard Bird Count is a great excuse to have a bird party!  No matter what kind of organization you are in, you can use the GBBC to introduce people to birds.  Have a 15 minute bird count from the windows at your office and invite your office mates.  Take a child or grandkid out for a birdwalk.  And if you run a nature center, birding store, or other bird-related organization or business, feel free to use the GBBC to shamelessly promote your own bird-related programs. 

Here's an example, a GBBC activity for kids of all ages at the Shelby Bottoms Nature Center in Nashville.   A quick note from the center director:

Shelby Bottoms Nature Center is hosting a free, open to the public program for all ages on Saturday Feb 16th to introduce the GBBC to our patrons and to encourage them to participate at home too. We are a brand new nature center and we're really looking forward to promoting Citizen Science. We, from the older and more established Warner Park Nature Center, have been contributing data to Cornell's nestbox monitoring project for Shelby Bottoms Greenway and Nature Park for several years. SBNC is located in a very urban park and so we intend to participate in the Urban Bird Studies as well and probably more. In addition, we are a designated Important Bird Area and we are currently forming an advisory committee and will be getting to work soon.

So have your own GBBC party and have a birding blast!

Thanks to our blogging buddies over at the 10,000 Birds blog, you can win a free book by helping to promote the Great Backyard Bird Count.   Check out how to win this new book by Backyard Bird Guru and Audubon Vice President Steve Kress, by visiting the contest post at 10,000 Birds. 

In the past two days we've been able to line up the last few regional reviewers we need to check up on unusual bird sightings reported during the GBBC.  Now we just have one last U.S. state to cover.  All the other states and Canadian provinces and territories have reviewers--and in some cases teams of reviewers.  Today I sent them all instructions and info to help them navigate the online bird sightings review process.  With one week until the count, we're almost set to go!

Each winter there are always some really rare birds found across the country prior to the GBBC that we hope to be able to see and count during the count weekend.  Here are some goodies we hope to see on the count this year.  Once the count starts up, check back to see if we're able to find these birds again during the count!

Barnacle Goose--NJ, NM

Pink-footed Goose--NY

Northern Jacana--AZ

Slaty-backed Gull--NY, MA

Green-breasted Mango--GA

Black-capped Gnatcatcher--AZ

Aztec Thrush--AZ

Crescent-chested Warbler--AZ

Golden-crowned Warbler--TX

There are many other hard to find birds that we hope to see--check out a summary of some of the rarest birds being seen in the country online here.

And if you get a chance to look for one of these rare birds in your area during the count weekend, we look forward to seeing your report of these birds on the GBBC!

Here are some new GBBC buttons you can put on your blog or website to show your support for the Great Backyard Bird Count.  Take 'em and run!

Last year we got over 80,000 bird checklists submitted to the GBBC.  With that many bird sightings coming in, we know there are sometimes problems with the sightings.  We are all prone to making errors--hitting the wrong key when submitting our sightings, or even making a mistake in identifying a bird we see.

To help us fix mistakes, we have a team of dedicated volunteers who review unusual bird sightings and potential errors in each U.S. State and Canadian Province and Territory (yes, even in frozen dark Nunavut!). 

Each year, before the count I make sure our reviewers are all set, and find replacements for those who are too busy this year or otherwise can't help out.  So far this year we're in pretty good shape.  All of the Canadian Provinces and Territories are covered, and I'm down to finding replacement reviewers in just four US states.

So when you're out having fun on the GBBC, pause for a moment to consider the many men and women who are behind the scenes making sure that we have the most accurate bird count possible.  While you enter your bird count and move on, these local experts are burning the midnight oil.  We love these folks, and couldn't hold the count without them!

Here at Audubon and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, we're gearing up for the Great Backyard Bird Count coming up February 15-18, 2008.  Join us here for news and notes as we prepare for the count, enjoy the count weekend, and start looking at results after the counting is over.

Hello, well our first day turned out quite well, and after an extended cold snap which lasted weeks, and saw temperatures pushing -35C, we got a break for day 1 and temperatures climbed to -4. Our first day netted us 32 species, which is not to bad at all but the story for us are Bohemian Waxwings in Saskatoon. Two massive flocks were found, the first was a single flock of ~4000 birds and a second was a flock with 1500, in addition to the smaller flocks found in the city, we tallied over 6400 Waxwings for the day. Eurasian Collared Doves continue to thrive in the province with a total to date of 34 birds, and a new location in Regina, we should have a total of 150 birds for the province when the count is all said and done

well thats it for now, talk to you soon

Greg