The Great Backyard Bird Count is coming. Are you prepared?
Coast
This year’s edition of the annual Great Backyard Bird Count is Feb. 15-18. On those days, amateur birdwatchers — or Citizen Scientists, as joint sponsors The Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Audubon refer to them — take as little as 15 minutes a day to record the bird activity around them. Count the number of different species you see in a given location, enter your findings at the GBBC Web site.
The count is open to even the most inexperienced birder. But if you are that inexperienced birder, you’d like to have at least some idea of what you’re looking at. If you can’t tell a robin from a wren, then you might benefit from an Armchair Birding class, which they just happen to be offering Sunday at Dismal Swamp State Park. Tips on how to ID birds and “make a contribution as a Citizen Scientist … in next week’s Great Backyard Bird Count.”