Have you ever wanted to be a citizen-scientist? If so, you have a great opportunity this month with the Great Backyard Bird Count. The GBBC is a fun, free and easy way to collect data that will give scientists at the Audubon Society and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology an idea of how birds are faring in our beautiful Wimberley and how they might be helped and protected. I am only a casual backyard birder, but I plan to participate.
The GBBC dates this year are February 16-19. Here is how it works. Just keep count of the birds you see or hear in your yard, or on your property for at least 15 minutes (or as long as you wish) on one or more of the four days. Then make an online report. You can learn how at birdcount. org. The free Merlin Bird ID app is probably the easiest way to report your data. One of my favorite things about Merlin is that it will identify birds by their sound. Birdcount. org will not only help you with reporting, but you will be able to see an on-line map that designates every place on the globe where bird species are being counted as the counts come in.
During the 2023 GBBC 7,538 species of birds were identified from 202 participating countries. Participants numbered 555,291, an impressive increase from less than 400,000 the previous year. Your Wimberley Valley neighbors participate in two other important citizen-scientist projects. One of those is Water Quality Monitoring in our river and creek. We all know how important that is! Another is night sky monitoring through Globe at Night. This international citizen-scientists project focuses on raising public awareness of the impact of light pollution. We all want to continue to see our starry night-time skies!
So, consider joining me in counting your backyard birds this month.
Let’s do all we can to keep Wimberley beautiful by helping protect our native birds.
