Register for the Christmas Bird Count, Saturday, December 17
Written by Andy McCormick
Registration for the 2022 Eastside Audubon CBC is open and there are still openings for volunteers to join on some CBC teams and feeder watching. Go to https://www.eastsideaudubon.org/christmas-bird-count to become a feeder watcher, join a field team, and join the Zoom celebration. We will have 15 field teams this year.
ACCEPTING VOLUNTEERS AGAIN
For the past two years under COVID-19 pandemic conditions, Eastside Audubon has conducted the Christmas Bird Count (CBC) with very small teams of one or two people. We were able to maintain continuity in our data collection, which was important, but we missed having full teams in the field. Now, we are resuming having more volunteers join birding teams for this year’s Christmas Bird Count Day on Saturday, December 17.
The CBC is the world’s largest and longest-running community science data collection project. The 2022-2023 count period from December 14 to January 5 marks the 123rd CBC sponsored by the National Audubon Society. It will be Eastside Audubon’s 39th CBC.
JOIN THE COUNT FOR FUN AND SCIENCE
The EAS CBC is an all-volunteer endeavor and we have three ways for you to participate. Our chapter has 15 teams being led by experienced birders who are accepting 3-5 volunteer participants. We also support at-home feeder watchers who count birds at their home feeder or other location within the 25-mile diameter circle centered on Beaver Lake in Sammamish. Everyone, whether birding or not, is invited to join the Zoom celebration after the count.
FOLLOWING COVID-19 PROTOCOL
Eastside Audubon wants to have more people involved in the CBC, but we also want to be careful to protect everyone from possible spikes in COVID-19 and flu infections. We will keep the field teams to 4-6 participants, and we will require wearing of masks while driving in a car for vaccinated people. We are going to postpone the after-count dinner for one more year and will host a Zoom celebration online.
Whether you participate by joining a field team, watching your feeder at home, or sharing in the experience of the day via Zoom, you can register for the event you want to join here. Registration closes on Dec. 10.