2007 Great Backyard Bird Count 2 March 2007
Posted by eatmorecookies in Links, birding, birds/nature, editorial, life.trackback
Shattering the previous record of 61,049 checklists, birders this year submitted an amazing 80,288 checklists for the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC). This means that over a four-day period one weekend in February, somebody went birding somewhere more than 80,000 times, and in each case, cared enough about the data they had collected to take the time to submit it via the GBBC website.
In Oklahoma, our 595 checklists is at least 100 more than our state total last year. I’m especially proud of Stillwater’s fantastic showing to again lead the state, this time with 144 checklists. Around here, we’ve really tried to increase participation in organized counts like the GBBC over the past couple of years, and it looks like we’re starting to see some success in reaching our local pool of college students who are potentially interested in birding. We haven’t offered all that much extra credit; the students are showing interest on their own!
I can’t say what contributed to a continental jump in over 20,000 checklists from one year to the next. Maybe mild weather got people outdoors. Maybe many more people acquired high-speed internet access over the past year, and found it easier to learn about the GBBC and submit their data. Maybe people are increasingly craving opportunities (excuses?) to take time out from their busy schedules and go see some birds. Maybe there’s a renewed sense of urgency among birders that we have a contribution to make to help future generations appreciate the natural world as we do, and organized counts like the GBBC make us feel like we’re doing our part.
Whatever it was, I hope people keep doing it. The more we bird, the more we learn. Going birding equates to practice and, like anything else, we get incrementally better each time we practice. When we go birding with others, we collectively improve, and we can get exponentially better by, for example, participating in a field trip led by expert birders.
As Spring springs upon us over the next few weeks, some of the best birding of the year will begin as birds stream northward to nest. Find a field trip, go dip your toe in that stream, and bring a friend!
http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc
do you want to correspond about birding at all?
just curious — I posted to you last month, but never heard back; don’t know if you noticed the comment.
Hi Ombudsben,
We’re glad you’re enjoying eatmorecookies. We don’t keep up with it nearly as well as we’d like to, but I can try to answer birding questions here. Do you have an Oklahoma connection, or are you just interested in birding in general?
But for an old family story about my great-gradfather, a Sooner who gave up his land to a hired hand when his wife wrote from the midwest that the kids were sick and hungry (the story has oil discovered later on the land), I do not have an Oklahoma connection.
I saw you are birders, and I grew up birding in Minnesota. I live by a small wildlife refuge for endangered least terns out here, whch I’ve written about:
http://ombudsben.wordpress.com/2007/01/16/edie-in-the-inner-sanctum/
I also do some casual birding along SF Bay, and have seen 4 different species of eagle in my travels. (The wintering baldies at Klamath Falls are an amazing sight.) I was struck by your site, and a note you had about cardinals and other winter birds I miss.