The 45th Davis Mountains Christmas Bird Count is scheduled for Saturday, December 17, and the Balmorhea Count for Sunday, December 18. Everyone who’s interested is invited to take part. The counts are open to birders of all skill levels.

“Having fun while birding can yield important results that affect bird conservation,” says Geoff LeBaron, National Audubon’s Christmas Bird Count director. “Audubon and our partners at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center and the Boreal Species Initiative are analyzing data from the overall CVC database, and using the results that find to develop Audubon’s ‘State of the Birds’ waterbirds report, and inform the Audubon WatchList, which is used to prioritize Audubon’s bird conservation activities.”

They’re everywhere, those birds: it just takes looking for them. Perhaps you too will see a glorious “Papa Cardinal” during your 24-hour Christmas bird count... (Marlys Hersey)

The CBC began over a century ago when 27 conservationists in 25 localities, led by scientist and writer Frank Chapman changed the course of ornithological history. On Christmas Day in 1900, the small group posed an alternative to the “side hunt,” a Christmas-day activity in which teams competed to see who could shoot the most birds and small mammals.

Instead, Chapman proposed to identify, count, and record all the birds they saw, founding what is now considered to the the world’s most significant citizen-based conservation effort – and a more that century-old institution.

Today, in Audubon’s centennial year (making the CBC five years older than Audubon!), over 55,000 volunteers from all 50 states, every Canadian province, parts of Central and South America, Bermuda, the East Indies, and Pacific Islands, will count and record every individual bird and bird species seen in a specified area.

During the 105th season, about 70 million birds were counted. Thanks in part to Bird Studies Canada, a leading not-for-profit conservation organization that is the Canadian partner for the CVC, last year saw a record yet again: 2,022 individual counts.

Each count group completes a census of the birds found during one 24-hour period between December 14 and January 5 in a designated circle 15 miles in diameter – about 177 square miles.

Apart from its attraction as a social and competitive event, CBC reveals valuable scientific data. The 106th CBC is larger than ever, expanding its geographical range and accumulated information about the winter distributions of various birds. The CBC is vital in monitoring the status of resident and migratory birds across the Western Hemisphere, and the data, which is 100% volunteer generated, have become a crucial part of the U.S. Government’s natural history monitoring database.

Articles published in the 104th and 105th CBC issues of American Birds define new methods of analyses of large citizen-science data sets, with relevance to other programs beyond the CBC. Count results from 1900 to the present are available through Audubon’s website www.audubon.org/bird/cbc.

“Over three human generations, the CBC has evolved into a powerful and important tool, one probably inconceivable to any of the 27 participants on the first Christmas Bird Count,,” said LeBaron. “With continually growing environmental pressure, the value of the current data might even exceed the imagination of today’s participants.”

The Davis Mountains (started in 1958) and Balmorhea (started in 1979) counts were started through the dedicated efforts of local birders Pansy Espy and Jody Miller and the late Frances Williams of Midland. Last year, the Davis Mountains count produced 95 species, 4058 individuals, while the Balmorhea count had 134 species, and 3772 individuals.

For further information and to register for this year’s Christmas Bird Count please contact Marty Hansen at 432-426-3033 or marty@birdsinflight.net.