Join....

Project Feeder Watch!

It's simple. Put up a feeder and pick two consecutive days during which you'll keep a look-out for birds in the designated area of your yard. You don't need to sit glued to the window, just keep an eye out. You could watch in the mornings during breakfast or afternoons while you're having tea, or you could watch at the top of every hour. It doesn't have to be hours each day, and it's OK if you miss reporting periods for whatever reason. You don't count each bird invidually, just how many of a specific variety you see at once at any given time. You only keep track of a specific area - if your count area is at the front of your house and one day you see a terrific bird in your backyard, it doesn't count. It also doesn't count if some amazing birds are there on one of your non-count days. Just log what you see during your scheduled count days.

You also take note of the weather, and then file your reports online (there is also the option to mail in your reports.)

All the instructions are here. There is a small participation fee: $15 for US residents, $35 for Canadians - the Canucks get a membership in Bird Studies Canada & get a quarterly magazine. Everybody gets an instruction kit and a bird ID poster.

And if you're looking for help with identifying birds, see if you can find some local birding groups. Birdwatching is becoming incredibly popular and odds are you can find someone to introduce you to the most common birds found in your locality. They can also recommend good field guides for your area - for a beginning birder there's nothing worse than a book which has tons of birds which are not likely to be in your area, leaving you sifting through whacks of what you think are possibilities but which are in fact, highly unlikely. I also prefer books with photographs as opposed to illustrations as I find many illustrations are a bit too whimsical and detailed - they may show details which would be evident if you had a dead specimen lying on the ground before you, but it's often not quite what the bird looks like moving around in its environment.

Online, check out What Bird? and Birding.com Their fact sheets on the Top North American birds is a good place to start identifying the common guys in your neighbourhood.

I don't need to tell you how 'educational' all this is, do I? I mean there's data collection and reporting, keen observation, learning bird anatomy, ecology, environment, could lead to optics and photography........But don't do it because it's a science project. Do it because it's fun, interesting, and contributes to our knowledge of the state of nature in North America.

Here's one of our buddies, the Northern Flicker, a strange member of the woodpecker family who spends a fair bit of time on the ground instead of up in the trees. On Wednesday, while we were at our table working on school stuff, he was doing some excavation on a rotting log by the creek, no doubt looking for lunch.

Knock, knock, knock.
Hello?

Helloooooo! Is anybody in there?!!!