.. for Christmas bird counts! Every year thousands of volunteers walk the neighborhoods in cities, visit parks, woodlands and fields to identify and count birds. They are citizen scientists for a day and become part of the longest running bird survey organized by the Audubon society. The collected data are used by scientists to investigate trends in bird populations and thus provide crucial information for the conservation of today’s common birds which may be in decline tomorrow.
This year marks the 115th Christmas Bird Count and counts take place Dec 14, 2014 to January 5, 2015. Given the large scale of the project local organizers find volunteers and compile the collected data. There is still time for you to find a Christmas bird count near you on this online map. On Sunday Dec 14th several groups counted birds in the Columbus circle:
You can participate as little or as much time as you want—you decide! The hardcore members of many groups though meet at the first daylight or even before to listen for owls and do not stop until the sun has set and the last light faded.
This year, with a group of friends and colleagues, I counted birds on west campus. We started the day at the north end of OSU Waterman farm. We scanned the open fields for sparrows and potential Horned Larks or even Snow Buntings which all had been reported from the area in years past but not this time.
Flocks of Rock Pigeons greeted us at the farm buildings:
A brush pile and the long line of wind-breaking trees provided shelter for a good variety (6 species!) of sparrow species.
For a full list of the 34 species seen during the day visit ebird. We saw some additional birds at the OSU west campus woodlot.