(From the sfgate.com) Birders in the snowy Northeast expect to see fewer robins while those in the Southwest will be watching for migrating sandhill cranes as thousands of citizen-scientists across North America get out their tally sheets for the 13th annual Great Backyard Bird Count.
The National Audubon Society and Cornell Lab of Ornithology sponsor the count. They hope to have more than 100,000 backyard counters for the Feb. 18-21 effort this year, especially after public attention on threats to birds was heightened when thousands of blackbirds fell from the sky in Arkansas on New Year’s Eve.
“An isolated event such as the dead birds in Arkansas may be within the range of normal ups and downs for an abundant species like the red-winged blackbird,” said Janis Dickinson, director of citizen-science at the Cornell lab in Ithaca. “But the count can serve as an early warning system for worrisome declines in bird populations that result from more widespread problems.”
The backyard count is one of a number of citizen-science projects that gather data on birds. Others are Aubudon’s Christmas Bird Count, the North American Breeding Bird Survey and Cornell’s Project FeederWatch and NestWatch.
Read more here: North American birders prepare for annual count