Americans Gear Up for 8th Annual Great Backyard Bird Count

I should have posted this a little sooner because the Great Backyard Bird Count started today. I'm going to talk about it on Sunday. This is a "Citizen Science" project. I counted birds, following the rules for the study, for an hour today (you can do it for as little as 15 minutes) and then submitted my count online. That's the technology aspect of this. While you can submit paper reports via snail mail, this project truly has a large Web component.

What I didn't know ahead of time was that today as the counts were submitted online you you could see on the Web site, in near real time, what birds were being spotted around the country. It was really neat.

I had wanted to do this for several months but had no idea it would be this much fun. You don't need to be an expert. Beginners are welcome but it does help if you can tell one species from another. There are lots of online resources and if you have trouble with an ID, you can even send in drawings or photos for help. I reported 11 different species all in my backyard today.

So if you like this type of thing, read the rules and get counting. It's not too late since as little as 15 minutes for one of the 4 days is a reportable count. The count started today and lasts through Monday.