The 24th Great Backyard Bird Count is set for Friday through Monday. Volunteers from around the world are invited to count the birds they see for at least 15 minutes on one or more days of the count.
Participating counters need only internet access to enter their bird checklists at birdcount.org.
The Great Backyard Bird Count was launched in 1998 by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Audubon Society as the first online citizen-science project to collect data on wild birds and to display results in near real time. Birds Canada joined the project in 2009.
The Audubon Society reported that one of the recent backyard counts included more than 160,000 participants submitted their bird observations online, creating the largest instantaneous snapshot of global bird populations ever recorded.
The local Audubon Society will hold count walks on Saturday from 10 a.m. to noon at its headquarters at Beechwood Farms in Fox Chapel and at its Succop Nature Park in Butler.
“The Great Backyard Bird Count is a wonderful activity people will enjoy doing,” said Jim Bonner, executive director of the Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania. “The count provides critically important information on what is going on with birds in our area and what we can do to help them,” he said.
Last year, an estimated 270,000 participants counted close to 7,000 bird species worldwide, according to Audubon.
The top 10 most reported birds were: Northern cardinal, 70,200; dark-eyed junco, 59,300 ; mourning dove, 58,400 ; downy woodpecker, 52,300; blue jay, 50,800; house sparrow, 49,200; house finch, 48,800; American crow, 48,600 ; black-capped chickadee, 43,800, and red-bellied woodpecker.
