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Garden Gate: Episode 80 – Backyard Bird Count

Nuthatch

NuthatchCHEX TV airdate: Friday January 8th, 2016
Click link to watch this episode online.

It was a cold winter day in January when I met with Erica Nol, Biology Professor from Trent University to talk about counting birds!

It was beautiful to enjoy the sunshine among the trees at the Trent Sanctuary.  Being as cold as it was, we didn’t see many birds! Erica suggested that they were staying close to backyard bird feeding stations to ensure they got enough nourishment to last the night. This reinforces the idea that feeding the birds, especially in the winter is a good thing and helps them to survive our cold winters.

There is a program called The Great Backyard Bird count. The 19th annual count is taking place February 12 through 15. Anyone in the world can count birds at any location for at least 15 minutes on one or more days of the count and enter their sightings at www.BirdCount.org. The information gathered by tens of thousands of volunteers helps track changes in bird populations on a massive scale. The GBBC is a joint project of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society with partner Bird Studies Canada. More information can be found on their website.

Erica shared with us how Trent University uses the data collected from these bird counts.