11TH ANNUAL GREAT BACKYARD BIRD COUNT
Presidents' Day Weekend, February 15-18, 2008 |
The Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) is an annual education and conservational bird-watching event that any bird-lover from casual to advanced can take part in . The following information is taken from the brochure released by the National Audubon Society and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the groups organizing the event.
The GBBC is fun, educational, and the data tabulated contributes valuable information to help scientists understand more about how the distribution and abundance of birds are changing through time.
Last year, participants submitted a record-breaking over 80,000 checklists. The American Robin was the species with the most individuals reported, while the Northern Cardinal topped the list of the most commonly reported species. Rare birds reported included five Lesser Prairie Chickens in Oklahoma, and two Pink-Footed Geese in Rhode Island, both first recordings for the GBBC.
Here's how to participate:
1. Visit www.birdcount.org for easy-to-follow instructions, including tips for identifying bird species. Download a checklist for our area. If you are unable to visit the website and download the list, we have lists available for $.50 at Wild Bird Landing.
2. Count the birds you see, wherever you choose to count. Write down the highest number of individuals you see at one time. That way you will avoid counting any bird twice.
3. After at least 15 minutes of watching in one place, report your results online at www.birdcount.org. You can spend more than 15 minutes observing at your chosen site if you prefer. If you do not have Internet access, bring your lists to Wild Bird Landing before 6:00 p.m. on Monday, February 18, and we will enter your results online for you.
4. You can repeat your count at the same place on each day of the Great Backyard Bird Count. You can also visit other locations and submit separate tallies for those areas as well.
Other fun elements of participation include viewing updated online maps and lists throughout the count. You can see how the birds you count fit into the larger picture! You can also submit digital images of birds - or of Great Backyard Bird Count participants - for the online gallery and photo contest at www.birdcount.org.
We hope that anyone who participates will share your results with us, too! Email us your stories and images of your own experiences in the 2008 GBBC, for future features on our own web site too!
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| BIRD VIDEO AND PHOTOS |
Some more great bird videos! Here are some YouTube videos of Double Yellow Head Amazon parrot "Poncho" bathing, talking, and generally being a character. Enjoy! And please be aware that although the content in these links are appropriate for family and work viewing, clicking other links from the YouTube site may lead to material containing mature content.
Poncho Taking a Shower
Poncho Calling his Mom
Poncho the Tool Using Parrot
Sleepy Poncho Mumbling Nonsense
Poncho Watching Himself on YouTube!
Here are a couple of other neat links to bird "stuff." These weren't made by us or our customers, just a couple of finds on the internet that we thought everyone might like.
First, a video of a huge flock of starlings. Love them or leave them, this is an impressive flight!
Second, if anyone is familiar with the web site "DeviantART," you may know how much fantastic artwork in many media is featured there. However something I recently discovered is how much amazing bird and wildlife photography and art can be found on dA. In fact, there's a whole club dedicated to bird art and photography, aptly titled "Birds-Club!"** You don't have to be a member of DeviantART to visit this fantastic gallery, or the galleries of its contributors. The main Birds-Club gallery is here, and you can follow the link in each photograph to its owner's personal gallery as well. Many hours of browsing spectacular bird photography!
**The above link provided to the Birds-Club gallery is family and work safe. DeviantART does allow some artworks which are considered "Mature Content." However as a non-member, these images will be filtered and will appear only as a blank grey box. Be safe and educated in your internet browsing!**
Here's one more link to a great portfolio of wildlife and bird photography. Kevin Lewis is a UK-based photographer whose work I first found on Deviant Art. When I asked him if he minded if I pointed folks to his work (not that I figured he would!), he sent me this link to his main web site, which has galleries of many bird and wildlife species that he's photographed. Plus, a special gallery featuring the Barn Owl Center of Gloucestershire, which appears to be a terrific conservation and rescue organization in the UK. Please enjoy!
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RECOMMENDED MEDIA |
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In The Big Year, Denver Post journalist Mark Obmascik tells the story of three expert birders from vastly different backgrounds with one thing in common: They are all doing a "big year," a full-fledged effort (pun intended), to see as many bird species as possible in North America between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31 of a given year. Each working within his own resources of budget, time, and knowledge, the three men criss-cross the continent and each others' paths all year long, seeking the birds from common to elusive. The Big Year offers incidental travelogues, social commentary, and even makes reference to the birding history of 25 years earlier, told in Kingbird Highway (see review below). The Big Year is available at Wild Bird Landing.
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Kingbird Highway is an autobiographical account of the early years of now-acclaimed ornithologist Kenn Kaufman. Kaufman dropped out of high school in the early 70's, at age 16, to take to the road, hitchhiking around North America to search out as many bird species as he could sight. Traveling with Kaufman through the pages of his book, we find his personal experiences interspersed with a tremendous amount of information about the birds he seeks and finds, along with a fascinating historical perspective of the growth of birding as an organized activity. Kingbird Highway is available at Wild Bird Landing.
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March of the Penguins is a documentary of the lives of the Emperor Penguins of Antarctica, as told by French Filmmaker Luc Jacquet and narrated by Morgan Freeman. The film opened in July, 2005 with a short engagement at the Mayan Theater, but quickly attracted enough of an audience to justify a long run in mainstream theaters, including Mann's Chinese Theater at Arapahoe Crossings (Wild Bird Landing's center). While March of the Penguins is no longer in the theaters, available on DVD here at Amazon.com. |
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Photo: Jerome Maison |
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