How to Participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count 2025

Becca Rodomsky-Bish: Hello. Welcome, everyone. We’re collecting lots of people flowing in here, so we’re going to wait a couple minutes as we settle in. Please feel free to drop into the YouTube chat where you are viewing today from. I am coming to you from Ithaca, New York. It is pretty chilly here today. Please let us know. People are coming in to this event from all over the world. So let us know where you’re coming in from. And we’ll get started here in just a couple of minutes. Thank you for being with us.

Fun to see people’s locations. Very inspiring. One of my favorite things about this event is how people come from all over the world to participate. We’ll wait another minute or two, and we’ll get rolling. Again, coming in today from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. My name is Becca Rodomsky-Bish. I am the project leader for the Great Backyard Bird Count at Cornell University.

All right, we are getting good numbers here. So wonderful. Welcome if you are just tuning in, please feel free to drop your location into the chat. We love to see how and where people are coming to us for this wonderful live event tonight, or this morning, or this afternoon, depending on where you are in the world.

So welcome, welcome. We are going to be discussing the Great Backyard Bird Count tonight and how to participate. Lots of really great questions came in, so we hope to answer many of them tonight. The Great Backyard Bird Count this year runs February 14, and it ends on Monday, February 17. Again, my name is Becca Rodomsky-Bish. I am the project leader from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and I will be acting today as the host for this fun conversation we are about to have.

And for those of you that are really new to the Great Backyard Bird Count, you may or may not know, this is our 28th year, which is very exciting. And we are a collaborative effort. It started out originally as a Cornell Lab and National Audubon Society Project. And then Birds Canada joined us not too long after we started.

And we also have been very blessed to be sponsored by Wild Birds Unlimited since the beginning. They’ve been a founding sponsor for us. And we are lucky enough tonight to have all three project coordinators from all of these organizations with us to talk to us. And I’m going to introduce them in just a minute.

But who doesn’t need a moment for tech, right? We all need moments for tech. Today, we are going to be zooming here on YouTube. There is closed captioning available to the audience. So if you would like that, down in the corner, you will see a CC button. And if you click on that, it should open captions for you. So please enable that if you desire.

We will be answering lots of questions, wonderful ones that came in pre live event. So many of those will be answered. But if you have questions that are not being answered, please feel free to drop them in the chat. We have two wonderful humans who are there and will answer your questions if they can, or we will try to answer it at the end.

So without further ado, let’s get started. I would like to introduce two wonderful panelists here tonight. Olivia and Cooper, if you want to go ahead and join us. The three of us are the muscles behind this work from all of our different organizations. Cooper Farr is from the National Audubon Society. Cooper, do you want to say hello?

Cooper Farr: Yeah. Hello, everyone. Happy to be here.

Becca Rodomsky-Bish: Great. And Olivia Carvalho is from Birds Canada. Olivia, would you like to say hello?

Olivia Carvalho: Yes. Hello, everyone. Excited to be here and chat GBBC with you.

Becca Rodomsky-Bish: Awesome. Great to have you both. We are going to chat the three of us for a little while, and then we actually have two additional panelists, which we’re really excited about, who are going to give us some really good perspectives on doing GBBC with kids, and children, and teens. So we will chat with them in just a little bit. But let’s jump in.

Olivia, I’m going to put you on the spot and have you go first. Can you give us a big picture? For those of us who maybe GBBC is very new, can you tell us what it is? When is it? And is it something that you can only do in your backyard? I know that’s tricky because of the title. Or can we really count birds wherever we are?

And I know that some of our audience is wrote that they live in a city. Is it OK for city people to participate and share their birds with us? And since you’re the project leader for Project FeederWatch in Canada, which is a different project, can you tell us a little bit about how maybe FeederWatch data is or is not used for GBBC? Do people have to enter it differently?

Olivia Carvalho: OK, I think there’s five questions in there, but I’m going to try and break it down so that I’m answering all of them and that it’s easy to follow. So the Great Backyard Bird Count, first of all, is an annual global bird count. And that means we have participants from all over the world. We had upwards of 200 countries and regions have participants in 2024. So just phenomenal that you could be, at your home in the morning submitting a checklist, and there’s someone on the other side of the world participating at the same time. It’s very cool to think about.

So the Great Backyard Bird Count happens for four days. This year, it’s happening February 14 to 17 over the long weekend if you’re in Canada, and also in the US. I’m not sure how other countries fare with the long weekend in February. But over these four days, we invite you to participate from any place that you can see birds. And maybe that’s your backyard, maybe that’s a conservation area or a favorite trail, or maybe it’s just one tree that you know birds love to hang out in. You can GBBC from anywhere.

And these observations that you’ll be submitting to us are really important because they help scientists better understand global bird populations ahead of spring migration. So it’s a really unique time for this data to be captured. And like I said, it happens all around the world. We just ask that you put in your location when you’re submitting to us. We want to know where you’re doing the GBBC. And you can do it on a walk. It doesn’t have to be stationary. But if you’re traveling more than 5 miles or 8 kilometers, just start a new list if you’re using eBird.

So there’s two ways that you can actually do the GBBC, which is submitting through the Merlin Bird ID app or eBird. And if you’re new, please use Merlin because it’s got so many awesome ID features to help you as you’re counting birds or you’re observing birds out on your count.

I really want to stress that there are some similarities and some differences if you’re a Project FeederWatcher. So if you already do Project FeederWatch, amazing. Thank you. I’m so glad you’re doing the GBBC as well. FeederWatch has its own app. So that app isn’t related to the Great Backyard Bird Count. When you’re submitting a count for the Great Backyard Bird Count, you’re going to use either Merlin or eBird. And it’s, yeah, really up to you what your preference is.

You can submit your FeederWatch account through FeederWatch that same weekend, and also submit account to the Great Backyard Bird Count using Merlin or eBird. But I like to think of the Great Backyard Bird Count as a chance to go to somewhere else to look at birds. I already do that count at my own feeder. It’s a really good excuse to go for a little weekend hike, or get out with some friends to go birding.

Becca Rodomsky-Bish: Awesome.

Olivia Carvalho: Did I answer all of those questions?

Becca Rodomsky-Bish: You get a superstar for how well you answered all those questions. That was brilliant. Well done. Well done. All right, well, Cooper, a lot of people tonight may be participating for the very first time. So I think Olivia just set them at ease, and they’re feeling like, OK, we got this. But can you describe what you really get down to the nitty-gritties a little bit more, what you have to do for those four days, especially maybe for people that are newer to birding? What resources might be helpful for them to learn the birds in their area and figure out how to identify them?

Cooper Farr: Yeah, of course. And, yeah, first of all, I wanted to say that we are super excited to have anyone who is just getting started with watching and identifying birds. I know that can be intimidating at first, for sure. But Great Backyard Bird Count is a really great, really easy, straightforward project for folks who are new to birding. So welcome. We’re really happy that you are here.

Yeah, so for our newcomers, basically, you just have to count birds one time for 15 minutes or more, sometime during those four days of the count period. So you can just participate once if you’d like, or many times over those four days, and you don’t have to count from the same place each time. So you can mix it up and go different places.

As Olivia mentioned, one of the tools that we have for submissions is the Merlin Bird ID app. And that’s a really helpful tool for folks who are still learning their birds. So the app lets you either record the sound of the bird, answer a few questions about the bird and what you’re seeing, or you can take a picture as well.

And it’ll actually help you identify the bird that you’re seeing. So it’s a great tool for the count. And then as you are maybe using the tool and going through that process to try and figure out a tricky bird ID, you are honing your Bird ID skills and you’re getting better for next time. So that’s a great one.

And let’s see. To answer some of the other questions, I’m just going to share my screen here and just show you the website. This is the main home page for Great Backyard Bird Count. And there are a ton of resources available for learning birds in your area. So to find a list of resources that we have here on this website, you can just click on the Help tab and go to help identifying birds. And we have a really nice list here that I just wanted to highlight a few from.

So I mentioned the Merlin Bird ID app. That is a great one. In addition to that, there is also the Audubon Bird Guide app, which is a great thing to have on your phone as you’re out in the field. You can use it to try and figure out some of those tricky birds. And then there are also some really great web-based field guides that are available. So one that we have right here is the Audubon’s Guide to North American Birds, and then also Cornell Labs, All About Birds website. So some really great resources to go through and learn your bird identification, which can definitely be tricky.

Another thing that newcomers might find useful is actually having a list of all of the potential birds that they might see in their area during the time of the count. And so if you head over to that participate page on the website and scroll down near the bottom, we have some great information about how to actually download a checklist of birds in your area during February. So you can narrow down that list. And that’ll really help you out as you’re trying to figure out the bird species that you’re seeing.

And then, personally, I think the best way to learn your bird ID is to actually learn from other birders. So that’s how I learned how to identify birds, is I just started going out birding with people. And so if you want to do that as a newcomer, we do have a community birding map that we’re hosting on the website. So you go to that participate tab and down to community birding map.

And we have this great map that you can scroll around and go in and out and look for a Great Backyard Bird Count event that’s happening near you. So you can join a team, show up and bird with other folks rather than doing it on your own, if that’s intimidating. And then if you are someone who is organizing an event, you can add it to this form. And we can host it on the map there. So folks can find your event. All right, I’ll stop sharing.

Becca Rodomsky-Bish: Wonderful. Thank you, Cooper. You get a superstar as well. You guys are professionals, obviously. And I think, probably, all of us maybe started birding before all these cool tools were available. And I used to go out just with a pencil and a paper and just write stuff down, super old school.

So it’s fun to be able to go out with Merlin or the Audubon tool and be able to be a little more high tech now. One of my favorite new ways to do this too, Cooper, I’m not sure if you like this as well, if you open the explorer section in Merlin, you can scan through beautiful pictures of birds. And right from there, you can also tell us what you’re seeing.

Cooper Farr: Yes. I love that explore section, a great tool.

Becca Rodomsky-Bish: Great. Cool. All right, so, Olivia, putting you in the hot seat again. How should people go about counting birds? Can they count the ones that fly overhead? Can they count ones they hear? If people are sitting in one spot for a long time, for example, maybe somebody is watching at their feeders, how do they count birds that come and go right, and not double count? How would you go about doing that yourself?

Olivia Carvalho: Yeah, happy to answer all of that. I’m going to start with how you actually submit a count and how you can join the Great Backyard Bird Count. And we’ve mentioned this already, but there’s two apps that you can use, that’s Merlin and eBird. Like I said, if you’re new to birding, Merlin is the best place to start.

And they collect data little bit differently. So Merlin won’t count your individual birds. You’re just capturing the species that you’re seeing. It’s a great ID tool to help you narrow down what you’re seeing. So again, you can go out for as little as 15 minutes to participate in the count.

But if you haven’t used either of these apps and you’re starting with Merlin, give it a go this week. Give it a test out. Get out there, 10, 15 minutes. Just get familiar with the tool. Because the really important part of actually submitting your data through Merlin is when you find the bird that you have already observed or heard in your observation, you want to hit That’s My Bird.

That’s My Bird is going to lock it into your list, and it’s going to count it to the Great Backyard Bird Count. If you’re using eBird, eBird allows you to submit the number of individual birds that you’re seeing or hearing. You can also include birds that fly overhead. That’s a bit of a big difference with Project FeederWatch. Any bird that you see or hear can be counted through Merlin or eBird.

eBird will also prompt you to include some additional data, and that includes location, and time, and the distance you covered. Like I said before, you really want to do it in one designated area. If you’re planning to hop around and go to some different birding locations, just start a new list when you get to the next location. That helps us get a lot more specific with the data, which is really helpful.

So to make sure that both of these apps are connecting you to the Great Backyard Bird Count, please sign in. And I suggest that you do that ahead of time to make sure that you don’t have any registration problems or that you don’t have any issues getting into your account. We found, last year, a lot of folks did experience issues on the weekend of and then had to put their data in separately later. So if you can get set up ahead of time, it’ll just be easier once you head out for your account. Login in advance. Make it simple for yourself.

When you’re looking at feeders for your Great Backyard Bird Count, if you’re doing a stationary count in your own backyard, the protocol here is a little bit different from project FeederWatch for Great Backyard Bird Count. FeederWatch takes the highest number of individuals seen in one observation period. That’s the same for Great Backyard Bird Count. So if you have a chickadee that comes to your feeder, grabs a black oil sunflower seed, dashes out of view, comes back five minutes later, your count is still one because that’s the most you’ve seen at one time.

But where this differs from the project FeederWatch protocol is if a male cardinal comes to your feeder, it leaves, and then two minutes later, a female cardinal comes, and you can identify them visually, you can count those as two separate birds. In FeederWatch, you still have a count of one. And that’s where it differs. So as long as you can identify that they are separate birds, male and female, then you can count them as two.

Let me make sure I’ve got all the information right for this. So you can also do multiple counts if you are going out on Friday morning and then you’re so excited about Great Backyard Bird Count, you want to go again in the afternoon, that’s no problem. We’re so excited that you want to do that. Please submit a new checklist through eBird if you’re going out at separate times. Like I said, Merlin is just going to count all of the birds that you’ve seen, so you don’t need to worry as much about that. But I think that’s answered all of your questions, Becca.

Becca Rodomsky-Bish: You did beautiful. Beautiful job. I’m going to represent the old school style for just a moment because I know a lot of us are still old school, sometimes, myself included. If you go out and you do your birding and you just want to write stuff down, maybe you have a clipboard, maybe you’ve downloaded one of those checklists, and you come back later, maybe you were out of internet range, what would your recommendation be to those folks? Let’s say they counted them, so they actually made a number, numeric counting, what should they do with those paper and pencil lists?

Olivia Carvalho: Yeah, so there’s a few ways you can submit them. You can come back and do it on the app once you’re back home. Maybe you like to go out without your phone and have some time away from screens. I totally get that. You can also submit it through the website. So there is a link on the birdcount.org website, which is the Great Backyard Bird Count website. And there’s instructions there for how to submit online. So, yeah, no problem if you want to download or print out one of those checklists that Cooper mentioned or you’re just taking a tally. That’s awesome.

Becca Rodomsky-Bish: Awesome. Yeah. And one other thing I’ll say for eBird, if you’re going to do an eBird checklist, make sure that you document your start and end time whenever you saw those birds. Again, for scientific purposes, it’s really important to know when those birds were seen and where. So if you’re doing it old school like I sometimes like to do, just document when you started and ended your adventure. Cool. Thank you so much, Olivia. That’s super helpful.

All right, Cooper, I’m throwing one back your way. Once people identified the birds as best they can and counted them, maybe they created a few checklists, because let’s say that we first watch birds at our feeders in the morning, but, like Olivia mentioned, maybe you want to go out for a walk and maybe see some other stuff, can people continue to report what they see as they go about their day? How would I do this for birds that I see versus maybe birds that I hear if I happen to pick up some sounds?

Cooper Farr: Yes, definitely, yeah. So, yes, all entries, all counts that you have during the four-day period count towards the Great Backyard Bird Count. So if you want to, yeah, see some birds over coffee and then go out later in the day and count, yeah, you can continue to report what you’re seeing as you go about your day. You will want to submit new checklists for each of those counting sessions that you do in each of those new locations that you’re in. But you can enter as many checklists as you like over the four days.

And if I can just share my screen again real quick. I also wanted to share, since you were asking about if you’re hearing birds, if you’re seeing birds, how are you submitting your account to the GBBC? There are a lot of great resources that are here under the participate tab, so just straightforward step by step instructions.

And then it goes through each of the three ways that we’ve been talking about of how to submit your data to the account. So you can look through if you want to do the Merlin Bird ID. Maybe that’s helpful if you are hearing a bird and you’re using the tool to help you identify what sound it is. That can be a really great way to submit your data.

You can do the eBird mobile app. So eBird on your phone. And your phone can actually– well, the app will use the phone’s internal GPS to identify your location and track your time and the distance of your account. So that’s a very handy way to do it if you’re out and about. And then we also mentioned, you can go old school and keep track of your accounts, and then come back here and enter your accounts later using a computer.

So, yes, there are step by step instructions for each of these. So you can go through and learn how to do all of them. And you can do all of them during those four days if you want to. And then another thing that might be helpful is just under this help tab, we have some tips for data entry. And then we have an FAQ page as well. So if some questions come up, this is a great place to go, look, and see if you can find the answer.

Becca Rodomsky-Bish: Super, super. Thank you for that. Yeah, and I just want to say we may have a lot of people online who have done GBBC and they like to show up and just a refresher course. But if we have people that regularly do eBird or Merlin, just keep doing what you’re doing. You already know how to participate. There’s no additional signup for GBBC. Just get on during those days and tell us what you see or hear.

And one other thing. Olivia and Cooper both mentioned it, and I’ll just drill it down one more time. Look for the This Is My Bird button. And in sound ID, you actually have to open up the bird’s sound that you recorded and scroll down to the bottom. And that’s where your This Is My Bird button is. So play around, like, I think, Olivia mentioned. Great idea. Get on practice. Get used to the flow of the tools, and don’t hesitate to reach out if you all have questions during the four days or before. Awesome.

I wanted to share one thing on my screen for people before we invite some other guests in. And that is, for those of you who are tuning in tonight, or this morning, or this afternoon, depending on where you are, the spread the word page, which is under our about tab here, where it says posters, social media, et cetera, we get lots of people who are so excited to tell people in their community, or their family, or their friends, or maybe post-social media that they’re doing this.

We have lots of resources on this page for people that are organizing community events. And, yes, add it to the map as Cooper was telling us about. We’d love to hear what you all are doing. So use these resources on the website as much as possible. Again, the social media, and posters, and so forth is here under the about tab.

Awesome. And before we bring our educator guests in, I just want to remind everybody that we give away a pair of binoculars during GBBC, complements of ZEISS. They make an amazing donation of a really nice pair of binoculars. So you never know. It might be you. When you submit your checklists or Merlin sightings, you are automatically entered in. No additional entry, but maybe you’re one of the lucky ones.

So, Olivia and Cooper, thank you so much for orienting us to all of these great ways to participate. We would love to have you come back towards the end and help us answer, perhaps, some additional audience questions. But go ahead and turn off your videos now. And Lola and Joan, thank you both. If you would join us.

And we are so very lucky to have two wonderful educators here tonight that are going to be giving us a really special perspective about how to do GBBC with young people. And this could be both classroom, or nature centers, or maybe grandparents, aunts, uncles, parents that want to engage young people. Some really good tips are going to come out of this. So stay tuned. And I want to welcome both Lola Ross. She’s a high school teacher from the Pacific Coast Charter School in Watsonville, California. Lola, welcome. You want to say hello?

Lola Ross: Yes. Hi, everyone. I’m so excited to be here.

Becca Rodomsky-Bish: Great. And then we have Joan Ling-Zwissler, who is a K through 8 teacher from the Pacific Coast Charter School. Joan, would you like to say hello?

Joan Ling-Zwissler: Yes. Hello. It’s nice to be here. Thanks for coming.

Becca Rodomsky-Bish: Awesome. Thank you both for giving some– educators work so hard. And it’s so generous of you to extend more of your time to help us all learn how you have done and engaged young people in GBBC. So, Lola, let’s have you go first. Can you give our audience some creative ideas and insights based on how you have worked with young people in the past? any materials you found really helpful, any really good tips for engagement.

Lola Ross: Yes, absolutely. So, first of all, I’m really glad everybody is here. It’s super exciting. There are so many people. And just to give you a little background on who I am before I share those tips. Again, I’m Lola Ross. I’ve been a teacher for over 25 years. Almost half of those have been in middle school or high school. I also have a 12-year-old daughter, so I’m speaking today as both an educator and a mom.

And Joan and I have been friends for a while. We teach together. We love birds. We bird together outside of school a lot. And a few years ago, we started collaborating on how to bring birding to our students. And so now, currently, I teach a high school birding class. And every year, we participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count. And so now, yeah, now I’m super excited to share some of my insights with you.

But first, let me share my screen so you can see those fantastic insights. And let me– oh, that’s just taken me a minute. Let’s see here. I don’t think that’s going to– there we go. OK. Good. So first thing is just why bird with teens. And really, it’s because it can provide social connections with friends, and family, and community that are not dependent on screens.

Becca Rodomsky-Bish: Lola, one second. I think we can see a box in front of your–

Lola Ross: Oh, well, let me try again.

Becca Rodomsky-Bish: Yeah. Give it a second go.

Lola Ross: Thank you for pointing that out. Let’s just try that again.

Joan Ling-Zwissler: Do you want me to talk a little bit about what our school is all about?

Lola Ross: No, I think– are we good?

Joan Ling-Zwissler: You got it? OK.

Lola Ross: All right. All right, so let’s see where I was. We were at the social connection. It also can provide a new hobby to students that might just become a lifelong passion. In fact, the student who’s pictured there with the binoculars at the front of that photo is somebody who is now super excited about birding and discovered it through our class.

But I think the main reason is that connecting with nature increases mental health and cognition. There are actually studies that show that being outside in nature can lower stress, improve attention and mood, help with higher levels of cooperation and empathy. And who doesn’t want that for our nation’s teens, right? I know I do.

But for the benefits, I also asked some of my birding students what were the benefits for them. And I’m going to share a few things that they had to say. It made them feel more energetic, less lonely. They like analyzing the different birds, seeing all the different colors. Some students reported sharing birding with their younger siblings or their parents. And, in fact, a lot students share it with their parents.

And I have one student who particularly asked me to stress to all of you how great the outdoors is for mental health. And I’m just going to read their whole quote because I think it’s amazing. This student said, “Bird watching, over the few years I’ve done it, has helped me greatly. Not only does it get me out of the house and exercising, but it has introduced me to a whole new community quite full of great and enthusiastic people. It’s also been a help in becoming a better observer, as it helps me look at things better and notice small details easier.”

And I feel like I could spend an hour just talking about all the different things in that quote, because it’s exactly why we do what we do and why it’s so important. And I just want to stress also that community aspect. You heard about the community different events. And I think that’s a great way to get students started too.

But you might be thinking, well, all those kids took a birding class, so they were already interested. I do have tips for helping motivate teens who might not be as familiar with birding yet. The teens love the food. Bring snacks or planned food into your outing. It could be a birding walk that ends at a pizza place or a stationary bird count while you have a picnic at the park. Every teen I know is highly motivated by food. It’s a great way to increase interest.

And actually, this was their recommendation also, my students. Their friends, as you probably know, also, adolescence is all about social connections and the social scene. If you’re going to do the GBBC as a family and you have a teenager, invite a friend or two of theirs along. They’ll probably have more fun, and you will probably have more fun.

OK, and phones. We know they love their phones. You’ve already heard about some great ways to use the devices as part of the GBBC. I do recommend that you try to get the Merlin downloaded ahead of time, as has already been recommended by others. So everybody can play around with it. But then during the count, game it up. Make a scavenger hunt to hear or see certain birds. You can offer points for every species or bird they observe and report. It could be a cooperative challenge, or it could be a competitive challenge if that’s what your family is into.

Another game that my students do all the time is when they see the bird, they just observe what it’s doing and then say out loud in silly voices or accents what they think that bird is thinking, like we all do with our pets at home. They just do it with the birds. And so I encourage that game. But the device aspect of that would be to take a photo and then you can caption it on your camera to show what you think the birds are thinking, just like I did with my little osprey.

OK, obviously, our goal is for the teens and everyone to have fun. We know sometimes teens can complain that something is boring or dumb, so one way to make it more fun is to enlist their help with younger students or younger kids. High school students are often more likely to be willing to help a little kid find or hear a bird than to look or listen for it themselves.

And then, of course, always share in your own excitement, even though sometimes teens don’t really want to do the same thing as their parents are excited about. But it’s way better for you to be enthusiastic about it than to not. And you never know what’s actually happening inside a teen, and they may be excited and aren’t showing it. So I definitely recommend you share your enthusiasm with them.

Then I also have some tips about how to add the GBBC to a class or an after school program. First, if you are comfortable already with eBird, then print out that eBird checklist or an eBird data sheet, like the one I have here. If you’re not comfortable with eBird yet, get comfortable later after the bird count. But right now, just focus on Merlin.

I suggest you start with that two-minute Great Backyard Bird Count video that is on the bird count website, where you registered for this event. But I also really recommend the three-minute video called 3 Billion Birds Lost to show to high schoolers. It’s on YouTube. It’s put out by the lab. It really shows the importance of community science and engages that adolescent sense of social justice and responsibility that is so prevalent at this age.

And then, of course, get Merlin on their phones, too. It does take up a little bit of data storage space. So I recommend that they just download the regional bird pack for wherever you are. Not the whole US and Canada, like I have on my phone. And then if your students are age 13 or over, then they can use their personal email addresses when they create their Merlin account so that then, if they move schools or when they graduate, then they’re Merlin and eBird accounts will go with them and their life lists will, too. And then, obviously, if those of you who are educators, you know review, review, review. So just go over the features ahead of time before you go outside.

If possible, I do recommend getting some good field guides for your class. I particularly like these foldable field guides, both the Sibley brand and the Local Birds brand because, one, they’re waterproof– always important with kids. Two, they’re compact, and they’re really easy to find common birds with. But the thing is, if you’re short on time, just see what your local library has on the shelf, because a field guide is better than no field guide.

And then a little just side note about binoculars. First of all, they really are not necessary for participating in the Great Backyard Bird Count. You do not have to have binoculars to go out birding and be part of this big project. But if you do have some that you want to use with your students, just make sure you go over how to focus them. For a student’s individual eyes, it doesn’t make a big difference in how well they can see. There’s lots of good videos on YouTube on how to do that. Jesse from the Cornell Lab has one that I particularly like.

And then one tip that Joan and I actually learned when we did our eBird educators workshops, teachers, go do this workshop, was to divide the students into groups of three, four at the most, where one student is responsible for writing down the data, one has a device with Merlin or has the field guide, one has binoculars, if you have them. The really important thing is that everybody has a job. So then you don’t have the wanderers. Everybody has an assigned job as part of the count. And then just go out and bird. Submit it to eBird after if you like that, or Merlin while you go.

Now, those were all things if you only have the one day. But if you have a little more time, then I recommend that you try to bird more than once with the students. And then do some comparisons after you’re done with your observations. The students can talk about the differences in the species and number they saw. Think about why they might be different, like weather or time of day.

If you have time, you can familiarize the students with some of the likely birds they’ll see. Have them maybe designate some target birds that they’re hoping to see from their area, which they can figure out on the Merlin explorer tab. You can give them a focus bird project. You can print out pictures and info of birds you’re likely to see. We already saw some of the places where those online field guides, Audubon Society website, Birds Canada website, all about birds, which is a Cornell Lab website, they all have really great info, and guides, and help you to identify birds and see what’s what in your area.

There are also some really fun learning games you can do. I offer these for extra credit in my class. And they particularly love the all about fancy males one. These are all in the Bird Academy site, which is part of All About Birds. But there are great birdsong games. And so it’s good for different types of learners. And so, yeah, I just recommend it as another additional thing you can do.

And then, finally, as has been said already, practice ahead of time. Especially for you as the leader, it’s really great if you can go out in the school yard ahead of time just to practice with the binoculars if you’re using them, practice with the field guide if you have them, see what birds you can identify. Where do the birds tend to congregate? So that then the more confident you are, the more you’ll be able to bring that confidence to your students and really be comfortable actually doing this with them. And that’s what I’ve got. Thank you so much.

Becca Rodomsky-Bish: Oh, my gosh, Lola, that is incredible. I wish that I had had you as a high school teacher. I didn’t learn birds till I was in my 20s. But, man, it would have been so cool to be in one of your classes. So well done. Well done.

Lola Ross: Thank you.

Becca Rodomsky-Bish: Yeah. All right. Joan, I would love to hear how you work with littles. I have a little one at home, so I’m going to be taking some notes on this end. Yeah, people that are tuning in with elementary age children or students, maybe grandparents, nieces, nephews, aunts, and uncles, how would you engage the little ones?

Joan Ling-Zwissler: All right. So I’ve been working with mostly elementary age students for many years, right now, at Pacific Coast Charter School. I work with homeschool families. And so we are lucky enough that Lola and I have been able to try some different ways to teach birding. And so I’ve had some weekly workshops, where I have the kids once a week, and our school was able to order some bird guides. And the kids have just been amazing. They love it. They are good at learning the skills fast.

As a child, I think I would have been a great birder, but there was nobody to show me how to do it. I loved animals. I would go outside and look at bugs. But I didn’t know how to find the birds. And so I take great pleasure in guiding young children now because they’re out there, they just might not be hanging out where you think they are all the time.

All right, so I’m going to share my screen. Let me just make sure I get the right one. Here we are. OK, so it’s actually pretty easy to get kids interested in birds. There are so many different species, and you have cute ones, gorgeous ones, silly-looking ones, weird ones. I mean, there’s just so many interesting birds to begin with. They fly, which is really cool. And so kids are just naturally very interested in birds.

And, of course, especially with the younger ones, anything that their favorite grown ups are interested in, they will want to do as well. So if you’re excited about birds, go ahead and let that influence them as well. Oops, let me see. So for older kids, I often will talk about birding is like going on a treasure hunt or playing a game like Pokemon Go, except that you have live birds that may show up at any time or not. So it’s really like being a detective and trying to solve a mystery using clues, like the bird’s appearance, and their behavior.

And what I like to do is I like to give kids some basic tools and some information for them to use to really explore on their own. I like to ask a lot of questions to guide them to discover things and allow them to engage through discovering instead of just telling them things all the time. Kids get a little tired of being told things all the time. And it’s just a lot more fun for them to find out for themselves. It really develops good independent thinking skills as well.

Now, for younger kids, it is helpful to front load a few things before you start. Birds aren’t just going to show up whenever you want them to. It might be really hard to find them, and they’re very easily scared away. So I like to actually have a little talk before we start and just talk about birds get scared when we are loud or we’re moving quickly. And when we’re outside, a lot of us are just used to being wild, that’s a place where we can be loud, and run, and play, and just be free, but that scares away birds.

And so if you really want to see birds, you have to really practice at being quiet and moving slowly. And that can be hard for a lot of little ones. So it’s a good idea to practice good birding behavior inside before you go outside. And this is a wonderful book that I’ve used as a read aloud before we started birding in class. It has beautiful illustrations, and it really goes over all those kinds of ideas.

And then where can we look to find birds? Here’s another place where I like to ask a lot of questions and have kids brainstorm before they go outside. Where are they going to be? Up high. And why would they be there? What would they be doing up there? What about on the ground?

Why would they be in a shrub? What are they doing? Are they looking for food? Are they building a nest? And once you start talking about it, kids realize, oh, birds can really be anywhere. But a lot of times, they’re busy doing things that we may not notice. And so we have to look a little bit harder to find them.

Of course, sometimes our eyes are not going to be very helpful when we’re birding. And so listening is such an important part of birding for a lot of people. And Merlin, luckily, is a wonderful tool for not only identifying bird song, but playing back bird song for kids to learn about certain birds. And when we’re actually getting ready to observe birds, I actually like to start with just a little exercise going outside, and we’re just going to listen for maybe one minute, quietly, with our eyes closed.

And kids are often very surprised at what they notice when they’re really trying hard to observe with their ears. And so that’s a really great way to encourage them to just open up their senses and really use them to find birds. OK, now we’re going to get ready for the Great Backyard Bird Count. So if you are just getting started with birding, you want to find out, like our other panelists were saying, what the common birds are in your area.

And then once you’re familiar with a few birds, I find it really helpful to have a visual checklist so that kids, especially young children who aren’t reading or writing yet, so they can actually have that to refer to to learn the birds and also to record their data. And I’m going to show you how to do that with Merlin right here.

So first of all, you want to have the Merlin app downloaded with your bird pack for your area. You’re going to click explore down here. And that’s going to pop up. You’re going to click on the filter icon. And then this is what’s going to come up, is likely birds, is where you want to click, your location, I’ve added my location here, and then you’re going to choose most likely. Then, oh, we’re going to get 201 birds.

So here, you can scroll through and find the ones that you’re likely to see. And if you don’t know what you’re likely to see, like my fellow panelists were saying, it’s good for you to practice. Go out there, see what Merlin is picking up before you try to do it with the kids. And then pick some that you think that you’re likely to see and/or hear that you can actually put into your visual checklist.

And so I just basically copied and pasted pictures from the internet, labeled them with the names. And then I printed some of these on paper so the kids could take them home after they were using them. And you can also laminate them so that you can reuse them. And they can get out a dry erase pen and circle the ones that they’ve noticed or make other notes on them.

So now that you have your birds and you have your lists, we’re going to go find the birds. And if you have parent volunteers, this is a great time to teach them how to use Merlin so they can come and help. So I like to actually start out all together as a big group and just say, we’re going to just observe birds for five minutes.

We might walk around together, but we’re going to use our good birding behavior and then record– well, actually, you’ll be looking at birds and talking about what they might think it is. It might not be one that’s on the list. What do you think it could be? What’s it doing? And so after those five minutes are up, you can discuss your findings. And then the next time you try it, you might try breaking into smaller groups with the parent helpers and then giving them more time to explore and then come back all together to discuss your findings.

And there might be some lively debates about, oh, well, was that two birds, or was that the same bird in different areas? So that can be a lot of fun. And then you can actually narrow down, OK, I think that was two birds. Let’s record it as such. So you can even start recording things on Merlin or eBird before the bird count. But it’s great to practice as much as you can, until you get to be able to do 15 minutes during the weekend of the bird count.

So even if you just don’t have a whole lot of time to get ready, and you just want to try this once with the kids and do it during the bird count, great. Just use Merlin. Record what you see in here. But if you do have time, it is fun to go ahead and do all these activities to get them ready.

If you have more time than that and you want to really get into exploring individual birds, I’ve really enjoyed using All About Birds with kids and just asking them to find out, OK, where can we find these birds? What do they eat? What do they sound like? So this has just about everything that you could ever want to know about birds. And it’s really easy for kids to navigate.

And then we have the Audubon equivalent, which is a guide to North American birds. And both Audubon and Cornell have just wonderful resources for educators and for kids. Meanwhile, Lola mentioned this field guide, which I really like. We purchased a bunch of these for our school. They’re already laminated, like she said. And I like it, particularly, because it goes from the smallest birds to the largest birds, left to right. And then you have all the land birds on one side and the water birds on the other side. So it’s a really nice reference for kids to be able to use with no screens.

This is another bird guide I really like. He’s got different areas covered in his field guides. And I really like it because the birds are grouped by color. And then within the color, they go from smallest to largest. And so it does give you quite a bit of information about each bird. So I was actually just looking for this to give one of my young birders today, because he’s really getting into it. And it’s at home, so I’ll have to bring it back.

Cornell Lab has wonderful materials. Lola and I did take a teacher workshop, where we were able to get some of these materials. So you can purchase these kits that have just everything that you could ever want to do with any age group, from K to 12. And then there’s a bunch of stuff for free, too. OK, and then Audubon, of course, also has wonderful materials, and resources, articles.

You can even learn to draw a bird with David Sibley, which is really, really cool. So there’s a lot out there if you want to do more than just a Great Backyard Bird Count. So I hope that Lola and I persuaded all of you to go out and try birding with the kids in your family, with your students, young friends. It really is a lot of fun. And you might just change a young life by opening up a whole new world for them.

Becca Rodomsky-Bish: Indeed. Wow, Joan. Thank you. Thank you. Both you and Lola are obviously very, very good at your jobs. What lucky young people that get to work with you. Thank you so much. And we have some more questions and a little more time left. So if Olivia and Cooper would rejoin us.

And as they’re clicking on, I want to answer one question that we didn’t somehow, I don’t know how, but we weren’t able to weave in that came in ahead of time, which was, where will results of GBBC be posted? Great question. GBBC was one of the first projects to ever, in real-time, display the results as they were happening for participatory scientists, like those of you that are watching tonight.

So if you go to our homepage, birdcount.org, it’s not there right now because the event is not happening, but at the very top of that page, the first section will have links out to a submission map so you can see in real-time people participating around the world. That’s another thing kids love. My little one loves to watch that submission map, as the world lights up and glows. And there will also be a link to eBird so we can actually see birds that are being identified in real-time, and that will just continue to tick over the four days. So go to a birdcount.org if you want to see those results in real-time.

And then, Cooper, this was a question that came up. I’ve actually answered this in emails to people, too. So let’s address it tonight. How do you recommend people that want to participate in GBBC, but maybe they don’t have the internet, or maybe they don’t have some of those digital tools to participate, how should they go about it?

Cooper Farr: Yeah, great question. Yeah, so first, we do require that data be entered into or via one of the tools that we have, which you do need the internet and a phone or computer to use. But if you don’t have access to the internet, or you don’t have a phone or a computer, or you just don’t want to, there are some other options that you can try.

So this might be a time where you could try reaching out to friends or family to have them submit your data for you. That is completely fine. You’ll just need to make sure that you let them know your exact location. So they’re not submitting your bird count from wherever they are. They’re doing it from where you actually counted the birds. The list of the birds that count. And then the time, start and end times, that you counted. And if they have that information, they can submit that for you.

And then if you are located within the United States, we have a huge network of Audubon chapters, and centers, and sanctuaries. And within those chapters, there are often volunteers who may be able to help you enter your bird data. So it counts for this project. So you can try and get in touch with the local Audubon chapter. If you are not within the United States, there are often local birding clubs, and organizations, and different folks who are excited about birds and who may be able to help you. So there are a lot of options, I think, for folks.

Becca Rodomsky-Bish: Beautiful. Great. And I will say that this is a great opportunity for people that have younger people in their lives with the fancy tools to call up those young people in your lives and be like, so I watched the birds. Can you enter them for me? It’s often a good intergenerational activity to do, too. Thank you. That’s really great suggestions, Cooper. That’s wonderful.

I’m going to throw one more in that seems to be really popular. And that is, why the heck are we doing this in February? It’s a great question. There’s a couple reasons. When the Audubon and the Cornell Lab started this, they not only wanted to see if people would participate, it was a big, grand experiment 28 years ago.

But it was an opportunity to try to inspire people to get outside in February, when it’s cold and/or sit inside and drink your coffee and watch birds. When it’s cold and there’s not as much happening for people to connect them to nature, perhaps. And in addition to that, it’s right before a big migration. So no matter which hemisphere you’re in, this is a period of time where birds are just about to go on the move again. And so it’s a nice time to just pause and get a snapshot of where birds are when around the world in February.

So it may feel odd for those of us who maybe are really looking forward to our migrants and they’re not back yet, and you really want to tell us about them. I totally get that. There are other counts throughout the year, where you can do that. But for those of us that are in the northern areas, I know we’re going to miss out on some of our migrants, perhaps, or maybe we’ll get some surprises. You never know.

Another question that came in is, could you talk about how to engage people who are differently abled? This is a really great question, and a lot of our presenters have already talked about how Merlin is a great tool for those that, maybe, visual is not your thing. So you can actually listen to birds and submit your sounds, which totally counts and is legitimate, or for those of you that are more visual. Merlin has that piece as well.

There’s also a web link on our page that I would encourage you to go to. That’s Birding For Everybody. And it links to Birdability, which is a really neat organization that has identified different birding spots around the US and some in Canada. And it will help you know where to go birding and if it will have access to the resources that you may or may not want when you’re out on an adventure.

And it also has some really, really good ideas for how to make birding accessible to different people. So check out that website, Birdability. You can find it from our website, or you can just google it. And then I know that Lola has actually worked with some young people. Do you want to speak to how you’ve engaged younger people with different abilities?

Lola Ross: Sure. And so my experience has been, I have a lot of students who have had learning disabilities or who are neurodiverse. And what I found is that birding is basically one of the things that can be accessible to every single person. There’s always a way in, and you just have to figure out what it is for that individual person.

And so, for example, I had a student who was on the spectrum and who had a very, very specific interest in flying vehicles, airplanes, helicopters, things like that. And so we looked at the mechanics of flight and talked about how hummingbird and a helicopter are similar. And so there’s just always some way you can connect it to someone’s interest.

And then I was just going to add, too, that a lot of our state parks, we take the public bus where we go. So I always have to look for where can we get to when we go on field trips. Where can we get to that we can use this one form of transportation? And some of our birding spots aren’t accessible by public bus, but many are. So it’s just I think it’s really just a matter of just thinking about how you want to get to where you’re going, and you’ll get there.

Becca Rodomsky-Bish: Awesome. Great, great, great. And then a quick question for Olivia. Can sightings be entered after the four days? How does that work?

Olivia Carvalho: Yeah, so you’ve got a little bit of buffer time to submit counts that happened within the 14th of February to the 17th of February. So even if you can’t get them logged, so you’re traveling, you’re working somewhere else, you’re on the road, you have buffer time up until March 1, but only to submit counts that happen between the 14th to the 17th.

And if you happen to be on eBird on the 18th, that’s great. Thank you for doing it. It won’t be counted as part of the Great Backyard Bird Count. But, of course, you can count birds every day using Merlin and eBird, but GBBC counts have to be within those four days to be counted in our totals.

Becca Rodomsky-Bish: Awesome. Great. And I’m going to try to squeeze just a couple more in that are here. One person asks about rare sightings, and I can just answer that real quick. Rare sightings are OK during GBBC. If you are in eBird, there’s actually a box that you need to click that’s right under where you would search for the birds. And you would just open that. And that will include the rare birds. They’re not automatically included. But if you click that box, they are included.

One of the things we recommend is take a picture or record a sound. If you’re seeing something really rare, this data is used by scientists. So if it’s a really rare sighting, a bird out of its range, we do like to have that additional evidence that that bird was there. So make sure to do that. And then one other quick question was– oh, maybe for Olivia. How do we know we’re not duplicating birds especially if we’re watching them from feeders, and they’re popping in and out?

Olivia Carvalho: Yeah, we really like to air on the side of being pretty conservative with our counts. So if you’re unsure, just go with the number that you already had. If you think it’s the same bird coming back and forth, go with one. I think that’s the simplest way to answer it.

Becca Rodomsky-Bish: Absolutely. And have no fear, there are scientists behind the doors that know how to deal with this kind of data. That’s why it’s used so widely around the world. They know how to account for some of that. And they will account for it when we’re actually using it for scientific analysis, yeah. Don’t be hung up on numbers. Try to be accurate, like Olivia said, as best as possible. But don’t be too nervous or anxious. Just tell us what you see. And that’s perfect.

Well, we are spot on, 8:00 O’clock. Ladies, well done. That was wonderful. So much rich information. I hope everybody watching here tonight got something out of it. I hope that you get out there and participate during GBBC, which, again, is February 14 through 17. Don’t have any hesitations to reach out to Birds Canada, or the Cornell Lab, or Audubon if you have questions. And a very special shout out, again, to Lola and Joan for devoting some of your time tonight to inspire us.

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