A good friend and birding enthusiast turned me on to this event, that’s apparently been going on for the past 24 years. How did I not know about the annual Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) until now! A really fun count, formally tallying all of our winter bird visitors to our back yard in central New Mexico.
Over the 4 days, 30 minutes a day, I counted 37 dark-eyed juncos, 8 juniper titmouse (titmice?), 9 house finches, 3 canyon towhees, 4 Woodhouse’s scrub jays, 2 mountain chickadees, 1 American robin, and more than 4O mountain bluebirds. This variety comprises all of our usual cast of characters over the winter months, either devouring seeds from our backyard feeders, or scrounging for cast-off juniper berries fallen from a large one-seed juniper tree. And oh those beautiful bluebirds ….. they just flew in for a bath and drink from a water dish.
While observing, I had some fun sketching the activity at the feeders, which sit opposite my studio windows.
As of this post, I’m still waiting for Cornell Lab of Ornithology to publish the final results. But by the beginning of day 4, here’s the numbers they shared with everyone:
eBird checklists submitted: more than 200,000; Merlin reports submitted: more than 210,000; number of species reported: more than 6,700 ……. all reported by more than 80,000 birders in over 173 countries world-wide. Wow! These data will be used to help determine population trends of species around the world.
I’ll be back next year and in the future to help collect data for this valuable citizen-science effort. It was fun and easy. Come join me too!
a curious nature 
Beautiful work, 😍😍❣️
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Thank you so much Aga! I really appreciate the feedback! Hope all is well.
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Yes, all is well. Thanks for your interest 🙂
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Wonderful ! Here we also have an annual bird counting weekend. Due to circumstances I could not participate this year and I also missed the results of the count. Since a few days we have had a visit from a green woodpecker in our garden, nice to keep an eye on him!
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Wow, don’t believe I’ve ever seen a green woodpecker before! Thanks for the comments, and not at all surprised you also have an annual bird count in your world! Your familiar birds would be wonderful to see, and probably first sightings for me as well! Appreciate the comments, Carine. Take care!
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I’m catching up on your posts (have been traveling and don’t like reading/looking on phone, so wait to get home to big screen desk top computer)… Love this one. Know about and have participated in the annual bird count (fun/interesting), but this is first I’ve heard of the Back Yard Global Citizens Science Project! WOW! I love it! Your drawn birdies are so winsome! Would like to have seen the Woodhouse Scrubjay!
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Thanks for the comments, Robin. The bird count was fun!
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