South Whidbey Christmas Bird Count day will be Saturday, December 28th. Sign up deadline is Saturday, December 7, with an emphasis on those who might like to lead an area. Contact govinda@whidbey.com.

The Christmas Bird Count (cbc) is a long-standing program of the National Audubon Society, with over 100 years of community science involvement. It is an early-winter bird census, where thousands of volunteers across the U.S., Canada, and many countries in the Western Hemisphere go out over a 24-hour period on one calendar day to count birds. Each participating group is assigned a 15-mile diameter circle that is then divided into areas to be surveyed. All individual birds are counted and listed on a custom bird list for the region. This information is then compiled and sent to National Audubon.

The data collected by observers over the past century allow Audubon researchers, conservation biologists, wildlife agencies and other interested individuals to study the long-term health and status of bird populations across North America. When combined with other surveys such as the Breeding Bird Survey, it provides a picture of how the continent’s bird populations have changed in time and space over the past hundred years. — www.audubon.org