Pinelands CBC

Once upon a time skill with a rifle meant food on the table. And birds were food.

And as with anything humans do, that skill was turned into a contest. And that contest became a team game, seeing which team could shoot the most birds in a day.

A skill useful to survival, putting food on the table, became one of excess and needless death, most of the birds (and other critters) shot in these contests left to rot.

A stream at our fist stopping point.

Then at the start of the 20th century Frank M. Chapman proposed a different activity. Instead of killing birds let's count how many birds we can see. And thus the Christmas Bird Count (CBC) was born.

And for over a hundred years folks have been going out around Christmas time and counting birds. An incredible scientific resource, a database of bird population changes over the years.

Image courtesy Patty Rehn

A Golden-crowned Kinglet, one of four at this site, 

taken by Patty with her phone.

Patty and I have been adding to the database, for Area C of the Pinelands Christmas Bird Count for the seven years we've been here, including this past Sunday, when saw 35 different species (in line with previous years) and 986 individual birds (a bit on the low side, it was windy).

There is still time to get in on the fun. Here is a link to find a CBC near you. So get out and count some birds! It's fun, and it's science!