Do you know what kind of bird this is? It and hundreds of others will be counted in the 2013 Christmas Bird Count on Saturday, December 14. If you’d like to participate in this year’s bird count, contact Jeremy Ridlbauer at (218) 370-0733.
Both feeder watchers and walking/driving birders are needed for the 2013 Audubon Christmas Bird Count (CBC). The count will be held Saturday, Dec. 14 for the Grand Marais CBC, which is a 7.5-mile radius circle from a point three 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, Gunflint Trail to the landfill road, Pine Mountain Road to the back side of Elbow Lake, Devil Track Road to Bally Creek Road, Ball Club Road to The Grade, Pike Lake Road, and Highway 61 west to Cascade Lodge, and all of the lakeshore between Lindskog Road and Cascade Lodge.
Participants can cover as much or as little as they prefer. You can be a novice to a professional, since CBCs are open to birders of all skill levels. Both walkers/ drivers as well as feeder watchers that can identify birds, and can count the highest number of a single species in an area are needed.
The “count week” happens for the three days prior and three days after the count day of Saturday.
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 107 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 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 Dec. 14 and Jan. 5 in a designated circle 15 miles in diameter, about 177 square miles.
Contact Jeremy Ridlbauer at sundew@boreal.org or 370-0733 to sign up and register for what area you can cover or what feeder or area you’ll be watching. Participants will meet at 4:15 p.m. at the Blue Water Cafe on count day to compile results from anyone who can make it there at that time.
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