You are invited to join the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count in Newton. This year’s annual Christmas Bird Count (CBC) in Newton takes place on Sunday, December 19th starting around 8 am. This is the 122st year of the CBC and helps to measure changes in population of our avian species (and perhaps more global trends such as climate change). Perhaps you have heard that North America has lost more than 1 in 4 birds in the last 50 years. How do we know? Partially from the annual Christmas Bird Count!
Small teams will be organized which will cover designated locations around the Newton area. The groups will be convening at 1 Raeburn Terrace, Newton Highlands at 8 am before heading out. Please come only if you are vaccinated and wear a mask. There will be an owling team which will be heading out from the same location at 5 am for the early birds.
Please sign up ahead of time and depending on the number of volunteers, you will be assigned to a small group with a leader. Leaders will turn in their results which will be consolidated into an overall Newton count which will in turn be consolidated to the overall Greater Boston Count.
The most common question of course is “how do you know you don’t count the same bird twice?” Well you can’t know for certain but we try our best! Your questions about the count can probably be answered at https://www.audubon.org/conservation/join-christmas-bird. If you might want to tune up your bird ID skills, check out Pete Gilmore’s video photo talk about Birds at Cold Spring Park at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBm4Xr0I6ps
If you are interested in joining the count this year, please email our Newton CBC Coordinator, Liane Hartnett (lianehartnett26@gmail.com). Please let her know if you will joining the early owling group or one of the later teams or both. Include your name, email, and phone number (cell if possible).
