Great Backyard Bird Count asking citizens to supply help
It would take decades for a single ornithologist to amass the amount of data compiled during the Great Backyard Bird Count.
But in the four-day count, a person without any science degree can put in just 15 minutes counting birds in their own backyard and make a huge difference.
“If 200,000 people are recording their blue jays over a wide geographical area like the United States, that’s real data,” said Dick Preston, a member of the Memphis Tennessee Ornithological Society.
This year, people in Collierville and Shelby County more widely have been preparing for the massive citizen science project, which takes place across the world.
In Collierville, members of the Collierville Environmental Commission have been distributing information about the count to schools since at least 2006, said Sheila Bentley, a member of the commission.
The Great Backyard Bird Count asks citizens to collect data on wild birds. They can do so anywhere: “You can be at work, at home, at school, on your way to school,” Preston said.
The project was launched in 1998 by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society. Participants are asked to, for at least 15 minutes on one or more days of the count, tally the numbers and types of birds they see, transferring those details into a free online account. This year’s count takes place Feb. 14-17.
Schools, families or individuals are welcome to participate.
In Collierville, 58 species have been recorded by people participating in the count, according to the town, which has been encouraging participation.
As for the county as a whole, 322 checklists were submitted last year, recording 103 species.
The red-winged blackbird, common grackle, eastern meadowlark, European starling and a horned grebe all make appearances among the birds counted in Shelby County, according to the data charted online last year.
“It’s almost like a treasure hunt. You never know what you’re going to see,” Bentley said. “Birds are such a treasure. … I think for me the main thing is that birds are actually a measure of how healthy the environment is. If you have no birds, that typically means you have problems in the environment.”
The count is especially important today because the bird population is in decline. In the past 50 years, the number of birds in the U.S. and Canada have declined by nearly 3 billion – about 30% – according to a report published in the journal Science.
“Before you can solve a problem you have to be aware you have a problem,” Bentley said. “The Great Backyard Bird Count allows us to see which species are declining, how they are declining or if they’re just moving to a different area.”
Preston, who has been with the Memphis Tennessee Ornithological Society since 1989, is quick to say that you don’t need to have experience as a birder to participate in the count.
The project’s website is packed with resources, including suggestions for birding phone apps to download, interactive species maps and guides to identifying tricky bird species.
“It’s fun, you get outdoors, but it’s also a chance for the average person to make a real contribution to ongoing science,” Preston said. “This is a great data set to give a good idea to researchers, land managers, conservationists. They look at this data and it gives them a good forecast of what’s going on and what the future’s likely to be.”
Katherine Burgess covers county government, religion and the suburbs. She can be reached at katherine.burgess@commercialappeal.com, 901-5292799 or followed on Twitter @kathsburgess.