St. Albert residents will join hundreds of thousands of bird-watchers worldwide this weekend as part of an international backyard bird count.
The 2021 Great Backyard Bird Count is this Feb. 12 to 15. Established in 1998 by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society, this annual event asks people to watch birds anywhere in the world for at least 15 minutes and submit their results online as part of a worldwide effort to study birds. An estimated 270,000 people participated in last year’s count, with some 27 million birds in 194 countries enumerated.
Research suggests North America has lost some 3 billion birds since 1970, many of which were from common species, said Kerrie Wilcox, who co-ordinates the Great Backyard Bird Count for Birds Canada. This backyard bird count is a simple way people could help researchers determine which species are most at risk of decline. It also happens just before spring migration in North America, which makes it a great way to monitor our winter bird species.
Backyard birders can expect black-capped chickadees, blue jays, woodpeckers and nuthatches at this time of year, as well as the occasional mob of bohemian waxwings, said Erin Dykstra, co-owner of Wild Birds Unlimited in Edmonton. This has also been a good winter for pine grosbeaks – look for a robin-sized bird with a red or yellow chest.
The best way to draw birds to your yard to count is to set up a bird feeder, Dykstra said. Place it either really close or really far from your window to prevent collisions, and hang it out of reach of coyotes. Stock it with nuts and sunflower seeds.
“The more food you have, the more birds you get,” she noted.
Visit www.birdcount.org for details on the count.
