Christmas bird count coming up soon

The National Audubon Society is once again sponsoring its annual Christmas Bird Count (CBC). This will be the 126th year this event will be held, making it the longest running wildlife monitoring effort in history. The CBC enlists bird enthusiasts all over the world to record a snapshot of wintering bird populations during a three-week period around Christmas once they have settled in for the winter.

Here in the Gunnison Valley the count will be held on Sunday, Dec. 14. Local CBC coordinator Arden Anderson will be gathering a hardy group of birders together at 7:30 a.m. at Hurst Hall Room 130 on the Western Colorado University campus. The group will split up into teams headed by an experienced birder and fan out to cover a defined count circle. Their task will be to try to identify and count all the birds they can within their assigned area. All skill levels are welcome and residents who are still developing their eye for identifying birds will learn from those with more experience. At the end of the day the group will get together for a chili potluck to compile their results. 

Local results will be sent to the Audubon Society to be compiled with the results from thousands of other sites around the world. Comparing these numbers from place to place and year-to-year is a powerful tool to understand bird populations, trends and conservation concerns.

The first CBC here in the Gunnison Valley was organized in 1973 by local physician and ornithologist Dr. Ron Meyer. A year was skipped in 1975, but the Gunnison CBC has run continuously since then. That means this year’s count will be celebrating 52 years of citizen science focused on documenting bird populations in the valley. 

Those who are interested in participating in this year’s count are encouraged to contact Anderson at arden@gunnison.com for further information. Take a break from the hectic holidays and join them for a relaxing day in the field taking a closer look at the world around us. If you have bird feeders at home you are encouraged to get them stocked because many birds in the valley are recorded around active feeders.