Project FeederWatch, a citizen science project
Project FeederWatch is a citizen science project that surveys birds that visit feeders in winter. When you register, you get a poster of the most common feeder birds to aid in identification, a booklet describing the count and how to attract birds and a nice calendar to keep track of count days. The data collected during this annual count is published in multiple journals and used by researchers to track the health of our feeder bird populations.
We learned a great deal from participating last year and plan to take part again this year. Not only is it great encouragement to take a few notes while watching your birds, you get to see the results that have been entered online for your state (or any other). It is interesting to see what birds are common in the state. Often, they are the same that are coming to your feeders, but not always.
Counts do not start until November, but FeederWatch will begin sending packets out this month. If this is something you are interested in, now is the time to start thinking about setting up feeders so that you will have something to count when the time comes! The cost is $15 which goes to help pay for the administration of the program.
birding, birdwatching, backyard birding, FeederWatch
September 12th, 2007 at 9:11 pm
I haven’t done the project feederwatch, but I’m going to see if my wife wants to try it.
September 12th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
It is actually what got us involved in bird feeding in the first place! I used to be a bit more serious in high school and used to take trips as far as my bike would take me to watch birds in different habitats.
This drew me back in because I wanted to share that with my children. We actually just got back from a field trip to the Sandhills yesterday, although we didn’t see anything we haven’t seen around here. I got a picture of some wild turkeys to share, though!
September 17th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
[...] wants families to join Project FeederWatch, a citizen science project posted at Backyard Birding. [...]
September 18th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Ohhhh…thanks for posting this & reminding me to sign up! My son & I became obsessed with our winter birds last year & observing them, and it was too late to register when I found it online last year. I meant to sign up this year but forgot all about it. So thank you!!!
September 18th, 2007 at 9:44 pm
Not a problem Happy Campers! I’m glad it was useful to you and I hope you enjoy it this year!