2019 Feeder Count

Today is the Nanaimo Christmas Bird Count, but not everyone is able to participate in the group counts that can occur rain or shine. If you're interested in volunteering some time for this citizen science project we recommend taking 15 minutes out of your day to enjoy counting the birds in your backyard.

The rules are simple:
1. Record species seen or heard using or perched in your yard only. Do not count any fly-overs, birds on the ocean or adjacent yards.
2. Nanaimo count day is December 28, but count week is December 25 - 31.
3. Most counts are done in the daylight, but you are welcome to look for owls in the evening.
4. Try to observe for at least 1 hour during count day. You can break this time into intervals if you would like.
5. For each individual species observed only count the maximum number of individual birds seen or heard at one time. This helps to avoid double counting. (E.g. If you see 2 Juncos at 8:45am, 6 Juncos at 9:00am and 4 Juncos at noon, your Junco count for the day would be 6 Juncos.
6. Please record times, duration and location of your count. Keep a separate record if you do any night owling.

We carry hard-copies of the Christmas Bird Count Feeder sheets at the store, but if you are unable to make it into the store we are able to email a copy of the bird counts (please email : the backyard@shaw.ca). You are also welcome to email us your own bird tally and we will copy the data over to the bird count sheets.

Happy birding everyone!