Birders across the county are invited to take part in the 2015 Christmas Bird Count to record the birds of Cook County, like this pine grosbeak.
Both feeder watchers and birders on foot and in vehicles are invited to take part in the 2015 Audubon Christmas Bird Count (CBC). The inventory of the Grand Marais counting circle will be held Saturday, December 19.
The Grand Marais CBC is a 7.5- mile radius circle from a point 3 miles south of the middle of Devil Track Lake. The count circle covers Highway 61 to Lindskog Road and north, some of County Road 60, the Gunflint Trail to the landfill road, Pine Mountain Road to the backside of Elbow Lake, Devil Track Road to Bally Creek Road, Ball Club Road to The Grade, Pike Lake Road, and Highway 61west to Cascade Lodge, and all of the lakeshore between Lindskog Road and Cascade Lodge.
Participants can cover as much or as little as they like. Novices and professionals are welcome; CBCs are open to birders of all skill levels.
Counts are needed not only for the counting day, but “count week,” which is the three days prior and three days after the count day of Saturday.
For count day, you’ll need a guide book, binoculars, a scope for lake birding, warm clothes, warm boots/ Yak Traks, a log book to record your observations, and a keen and quick eye to count our winter rarities!
If you are a feeder watcher, keep your feeders full through count day to encourage birds to be there on that day, have various foods available in feeders and on the ground to entice as many species as possible.
While Audubon’s National CBC effort began Christmas Day 1900, the first known Minnesota CBCs were conducted on Christmas Day 1905 in Minneapolis and Red Wing. During those last 109 years, the Christmas Bird Count has been conducted uninterrupted in the state and has grown to include almost 70 census circles and involved more than 28,000 participants.
Each and every year more than 1,000 participants canvass the state to conduct the survey.
These participants have logged nearly 77,000 total hours, traveling approximately 548,000 miles. The Minnesota CBC has tallied over 8.5 million birds of 201 species. Today, over 55,000 volunteers from all 50 states, every Canadian province, parts of Central and South America, Bermuda, the West Indies, and Pacific islands count and record every individual bird and bird species seen in a specified area.
Each count group completes a census of the birds found during one 24-hour period between December 14 and January 5 in a designated circle 15 miles in diameter, about 177 square miles.
Please contact Grand Marais Audubon Christmas Bird Count Compiler Jeremy Ridlbauer @ sundew@boreal.org or 370-0733 to notify organizers about what area you can cover or what feeder or area you’ll be watching.
Ridlbauer said, “We’d like to contact you or have you contact us on the count day to report results.”
Counters will meet at 4:15 p.m. at the Blue Water Café on count day to compile results from anyone who can make it there at that time.
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