Wright County Residents Can Take Part In Audubon Society's Annual Bird Count

From the Wright County Government:

December 10, 2019

Wright County Residents Can Take Part In Audubon Society's Annual Bird Count

Nature lovers in Wright County can join up with bird enthusiasts (birders) across the Western Hemisphere Jan. 4 to take part in the 120th Annual Christmas Bird Count (CBC), a scientific outreach study for the National Audubon Society.

This year’s program is going to have more than 2,200 individual counting sites throughout North, Central and South America and runs from Dec. 14 to Jan. 5, 2020. Wright County’s participation will take place Saturday, Jan. 4 from dawn until dusk. The census coverage area includes the northern
portion of Wright County, including the cities of Buffalo, Maple Lake and
Monticello, as well as Buffalo, Chatham, Maple Lake, Monticello and Silver
Creek townships and portions of Corinna, Marysville and Rockford townships.

Wright County Parks & Recreation Director Marc Mattice said his office has encouraged birders to do counts in the county’s park system. The parks in this year’s coverage area include Bertram Chain of Lakes Regional Park, Montissippi Park, the Ney Park Nature Center and Harry Larson Park.

Those who want to take part in this year’s CBC from home are encouraged to fill bird feeders to attract birds – from the commonplace to the unusual. The CBC began Dec. 25, 1900 as an alternative to the “side hunt” – a Christmas Day activity at the time where teams competed to see who could shoot the most birds and small mammals. Over 120 years, the CBC has become one of the most recognized and significant citizen-based conservation efforts.

The CBC has helped develop groundbreaking bird-related data for ornithologists concerning native bird populations during the winter months and the CBC data collected over the last several has been used to identify 314 species of North American birds that have been endangered by
climate change.

There is no cost to participate and a wealth of information is available on the “Christmas Bird Count” tab on the National Audubon Society’s website.

This press release was produced by the Wright County Government. The views expressed here are the author’s own.