Jeff Wright, a new board member, has been having difficulty posting this to the
Hotline...
This is the first in a series of weekly notes on Citizen Science and
Conservation topics from the Northern Neck Audubon Society.
The Great Back Yard Bird Count - Feb 2016
Launched in 1998 the Great Backyard Bird Count was the first online
citizen-science project to collect data on wild birds and to display results in
near real-time. The Great Backyard Bird Count is led by the Cornell Lab of
Ornithology and National Audubon Society, with Bird Studies Canada and many
international partners. The Great Backyard Bird Count is powered by e-Bird.
More than 100,000 people of all ages and walks of life from over 140 countries
worldwide joined the four-day count this month to create an annual snapshot of
the distribution and abundance of birds. The level of participation in terms
of the number people and countries shattered previous records.
GBBC is a major contribution to science and a very successful endeavor for
Citizen Science.
Though the final date for GBBC entries is 1 Mar the preliminary data as of
8:00AM 25 Feb reflects:
Checklists Submitted: 158,644 Total Species Observed: 5,589 Total
Individual Birds Counted: 18,180,049
Northern Neck participation in the Feb 2016 “Great Back Yard Bird Count"
Northumberland County “flew, hopped, swam, and migrated” past its sister NNK
counties to the South and West by having the highest number of participants,
checklists submitted, and species reported.
Northumberland County - • 16 participants, 58 Species identified, and
43 checklists submitted. • Multiple check lists submitted: Maryalyce
Johnsen (5), Lawrence Fritsche (4), Roz Messing (4), William Eldred (4), Ivor
van Heerden (2), Debbie Campbell (2), and Brian Rueger (2) • More than 20
Species counted: Gary Yordy, Maryalyce Johnsen, and Joan Fletcher
Lancaster County - • 5 participants, 49 Species identified, and 13
checklists submitted. • Multiple check lists submitted: Beth Kendrick (4),
Kathleen Lowe (3), and Kathy Bearden (2) • More than 20 Species counted:
Kathy Bearden and Beth Kendrick
Westmoreland County - • 5 participants, 43 Species identified, and 13
checklists submitted. • Multiple check lists submitted: Melissa Gross (5) and
Nancy Busick (2) • More than 20 Species counted: Melissa Gross, R
Latane, and Sharon Olson
Richmond County - No participants or species counts posted to the data as of 25
Feb. I hope that this is an anomaly as I know there are birders (and a
bodacious number of birds) in Richmond County.
You can go to the great backyard bird count website to view the data on bird
species from around the world and drill down into the data. The data is
viewable for each county or you can filter the data to a country region or
continent. If you're a fan of the birds of Australia or India the data is
there for this years count! Go to gbbc.birdcount.org or type into the
browser’s search engine Great Backyard Bird Count.
Again a big thank you and “well done” to the 31 folks who counted birds on the
Northern Neck for the 2016 GBBC.
Can Northumberland County hold on to the top perch for participants, species,
and checklists again in Feb 2017? Can Westmoreland, Lancaster, and Richmond
fly higher in Feb 2017?
Why count Birds on the Northern Neck?
Scientists and bird enthusiasts can learn a lot by knowing where the birds are.
Bird populations are dynamic; they are constantly in flux. No single scientist
or team of scientists could hope to document and understand the complex
distribution and movements of so many species in such a short time. Scientists
use information from the Great Backyard Bird Count, along with observations
from other citizen-science projects, such as the Christmas Bird Count, Project
FeederWatch, and individuals and birding groups submitted observations, to
e-Bird to get the “big picture” about what is happening to bird populations.
The longer these data are collected, the more meaningful they become in helping
scientists investigate far-reaching questions, like these:
How will the weather and climate change influence bird populations?Some birds
appear in large numbers on the Northern Neck during some years but not others.
Where are these species from year to year, and what can we learn from these
patterns?How will the timing of birds’ migrations compare with past years on
the Northern Neck and surrounding waters?What kinds of differences in bird
diversity are apparent in cities and towns versus suburban, rural, and natural
areas?
Anticipate (and hope) that more NNAS members and NNK birders will use e-Bird in
2016 to help scientists - and all of us - understand where the birds are on the
Northern Neck and our surrounding waters.
Jeff
Jeff WrightNNAS Citizen Science and Conservation Committee
