| Tens of thousands of Christmas Bird Count participants will be outside counting birds, from the high Canadian and Alaskan Arctic to southern South America to find out the latest bird statistics. Ozark Gateway Audubon Society and the Wildcat Glades Conservation & Audubon Center will team up to conduct the area bird count on Thursday, Jan. 3, 2008. The group will leave at 7 a.m. from the Audubon Center in Wildcat Park, Joplin. Participants will return to the Audubon Center at noon for a chili lunch.
There is a $5.00 participation fee for field birders, but feeder and yard watchers and children under 18 year of age are free.
The Christmas Bird Count (CBC) is a long-standing program of the National Audubon Society. It is an early-winter bird census, where volunteers follow specified routes through a designated 15-mile diameter circle, counting every bird they see or hear all day. It’s not just a species tally. All birds are counted all day, giving an indication of the total number of birds in the circle that day. All individual CBCs are conducted in the period from December 14 – January 5 each season, and each count is conducted in one calendar day.
More than 50,000 observers participate each year in this all-day census of early-winter bird populations. The results of their efforts are compiled into the longest running database in ornithology, representing over a century of unbroken data on trends of early-winter bird populations across the Americas. Having good information makes assigning conservation priorities possible. Simply put, the Christmas Bird Count, or "CBC", is citizen science in action.
CBC participants are organized into groups—or field parties—by the organizer or compiler of each count. Each field party covers a specific area of the 15-mile diameter circle on a specific route. And anyone is welcome to participate, since compilers arrange field parties so that inexperienced observers are always out with seasoned CBC veterans.
For more information or to participate, please contact the Audubon Center at (417) 792-NATR.
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