Help Scientists Study Local Bird Populations
Project FeederWatch is a program of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. This program is for anyone who enjoys watching birds come to their feeder and would be willing to set aside some time to identify and count birds in their backyards and report them to Cornell for scientists to use in gathering data about bird populations in the United States and Canada.

The annual participant's fee is $15 and for that you receive:
  • Instruction set
  • FeederWatch handbook, filled with tips for
    • attracting birds to your yard
    • maintaining a clean and safe feeder area
    • selecting bird feeders and foods
    • identifying birds
    • discouraging predators and pests
  • Bird-identification poster
  • Colorful wall calendar to keep track of your bird-counting days
  • One year subscription to BirdScope
  • Access to the FeederWatch web site
You can report your data either manually through the mail or through the web site. You can also keep track of the data being collected in your area or accross the continent by other Feeder Watchers. The program runs from November 11, 2006 through April 6, 2007 and packets take a few weeks to arrive.

You can be a part of the world's largest research team, studying feeder-bird populations from coast to coast!

More information can be found at their website.

We are planning on doing this and you'll probably hear more about it as we get going. We just set up our feeders and filled our bird bath so we'll see who starts coming. Actually, I did this or a very similar project in high school and really enjoyed it. Being part of a real project run by real scientists doing real research is kind of intriguing, even if you are just tallying birds in your backyard. That is what most of "real science" looks like, after all!

If anyone else is doing this, or decides to start, please let me know. I'd love to keep track of fellow participants!

Also, I completely forgot to put this up, but if you are looking for a field trip, By Sun and Candlelight is hosting the early autumn edition of her seasonal field day. Stop by and check out the changing seasons with some fellow bloggers!

Related Tags: , , , ,