The National Audubon Society is organizing its annual Christmas Bird Count for the 125th year. It’s the longest-running bird census and a way for people to help conservationists protect birds.
For this month’s Chirp Chat, Lake Effect’s Xcaret Nuñez spoke with Zoe Finney, the Creative Lead at the Schlitz Audubon Nature Center, to learn how the community science project helps birds. Finney has been organizing and gathering Christmas Bird Count data for the Milwaukee area since 2014.
“Having this great wealth of info over such a long time period means that scientists and ornithologists can use this data to research things like climate change and how it is impacting bird populations,” Finney says. “It gives a picture of different bird species, overall population health, and it also shows trends like how and why birds are staying north longer.”
The Christmas Bird Count happens every year between Dec. 14 and Jan. 5, and tens of thousands of birders participate across the Western Hemisphere. Finney says the first Christmas Bird Count took place on Christmas Day in 1900, and Milwaukee followed soon after, holding its first Christmas Bird Count in 1905.
“It’s been going on for a very long time,” Finney says. “The first year there were two birders at the Milwaukee count. From 1905 to 1946, the counts were pretty irregular, but since 1946, [Milwaukee] has only missed one count.”
How it works
Finney says Milwaukee’s Christmas Bird Count is a 15-mile-wide circle, and she subdivides it into 25 different areas.
As a co-organizer, Finney's responsible for organizing volunteers, compiling the data each person collects and submitting observations to the National Audubon Society. She’s also in charge of deciding what day to conduct Milwaukee’s Christmas Bird Count — this year’s count will happen on Saturday, Dec. 14.
Within the 15-mile-wide circle, volunteers are tasked with tallying all of the birds they see or hear that day in their assigned area — not just the bird species, but the total number of birds. This helps give scientists a clear idea of what the bird population looks like in that area.
How to participate
Finney says birders of all skill levels — new and experienced — are encouraged to participate in the annual Christmas Bird Count. She says people can even participate from home by counting the birds that visit their bird feeders.
If you’re interested in participating this year, below is a list of bird counts happening around Southeast Wisconsin. You can also see a full list of Christmas Bird Counts in Wisconsin.
- Schlitz Audubon Nature Center: Contact Zoe Finney at zfinney@schlitzaudubon.org
- Riveredge Nature Center: Contact Mary Holleback at mholleback@riveredge.us
- BIPOC Birding Club – Milwaukee Area: Contact Rita Flores Wiskowski at bipocbirdingclubmilwaukee@gmail.com
- Urban Ecology Center: Contact Tim Vargo at tvargo@urbanecologycenter.org
- Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance: Contact Brenna Marsicek at bmarsicek@swibirds.org
Chirp Chat’s Bird of the Month for December
Although it’s not a bird you can find in Wisconsin during the winter, you can spot it in May when it migrates through Southeast Wisconsin to its breeding grounds in Northern Wisconsin and Canada. Finney says it’s her favorite bird, partly because it’s her favorite color.
“One really cool thing that I love about the Blackburnian warbler, besides that it's bright orange, is that it’s actually named after Anna Blackburne, who was an English naturalist in the 1700s,” she says. Often, a lot of birds get their names from male naturalists, so it's just a little refreshing that there's finally a lady who had a bird named after her.”
