The Great Backyard Bird Count is an annual four-day event that engages bird watchers of all ages in counting birds to create a real-time snapshot of where the birds are across the continent. Anyone can participate, from beginning bird watchers to experts. It takes as little as 15 minutes on one day, or you can count for as long as you like each day of the event. It's free, fun, and easy-and it helps the birds."
Every winter, bird watchers across North America anxiously await the possible incursion of birds that don't normally winter in their areas. These periodic bird irruptions add a dramatic level of excitement to winter birding.
More than ever, we urge you to participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC). Rarely have we had such a pressing need to understand the changes in bird populations as we do right now.
Citizen science efforts such as the Great Backyard Bird Count can tell us a lot about the health of our environment. For example, data from two similar projects, the Christmas Bird Count (CBC) and the Breeding Bird Survey (BBS), are vital in allowing us to monitor the status of quail and other bird populations in North America. Your input for the GBBC can also help us in this effort.
In 2001, Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) participants went out in force with binoculars--and rulers. In addition to recording the bird species they saw, they measured the snow, submitting some 52,000 reports of snow depth from across the United States and Canada. Researchers at the Lab of Ornithology then used this unprecedented wealth of data to create a snapshot of bird distribution and snow cover.
