This evening grosbeak is one of the many bird species that will no doubt be included in this year’s annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count, which takes place on Saturday, Dec. 20. Participants can be novice to professional and need only a guidebook, binoculars, a scope for lake birding, warm clothes and boots, and a log book to chart their observations. For more information contact Jeremy Ridlbauer at (218) 370-0733.
Both feeder watchers and birders to walk or drive are needed for the 2014 Audubon Christmas Bird Count (CBC) on Saturday, December 20.
Participants can cover as much or as little as they would like in the Grand Marais counting circle, which 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 Rd 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 Rd, and Highway 61west to Cascade Lodge, and all of the lakeshore between Lindskog Road and Cascade Lodge.
Participants can be novice to professional, since CBCs are open to birders of all skill levels. CBC Bird Count Compiler Jeremy Ridlbauer said, “We can use both walkers and drivers as well as feeder watchers that can identify birds and can count the highest number of a single species in an area as well.
“We’ll also need any species of birds that you see in the count circle, but not on the count day. This ‘count week’ happens for the three days prior and three days after the count day of Saturday.”
For count day, participants need a guidebook, binoculars, a scope for lake birding, warm clothes, warm boots/Yak Traks, a logbook to record your observations, and a keen and quick eye to count our winter rarities!
If you are a feeder watcher, keep you feeders full up and 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 108 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 greater than 1,000 participants canvas 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.
Please contact Jeremy Ridlbauer at sundew@boreal.org or 370-0733 to notify organizers about what area you can cover or what feeder or area you’ll be watching.
We’d like to contact you or have you contact us on the count day to report results. Participants are invited to meet at 4:15 p.m. at he Blue Water Cafe on count day to compile results.
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