ITHACA, N.Y. (AP) — Thousands of volunteers across North America are flocking to fields and forests for the National Audubon Society’s annual Christmas Bird Count.
The information they gather goes into a massive database that began in 1900. The Audubon project was started in part to counter an old tradition of shooting birds around Christmastime. It has grown into the longest-running citizen science project and a valuable resource for researchers studying the growth and decline of bird populations.
David Bonter of Cornell’s Lab of Ornithology says the only way to track large-scale patterns in bird populations is to enlist the help of the public.
From Dec. 14 until Jan. 5, tens of thousands of Christmas Bird count volunteers will note all the birds they see in specified 15-mile-wide circles, and submit the data.