Environmental Commission

The Great Backyard Bird Count

Feb 12-15, 2021

The Hazlet Environmental Commission encourages residents to join in an annual February tradition to help expand our understanding of birds. We are lucky that Hazlet's Natco Lake attracts many migrating birds to our area!

The Great Backyard Bird Count brings the world comes together for the love of birds. During these four days, people are invited to spend time in their favorite places watching and counting as many birds as they can find and then report their sightings.. These observations help scientists better understand global bird populations before one of their annual migrations.
The Great Backyard Bird Count is an inter-organizational effort between the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, National Audubon Society, and Birds Canada.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE

Participating is easy, fun to do alone, or with others, and can be done anywhere you find birds. Simply watch birds for 15 minutes or more, at least once over the four days, February 12-15, 2021, and report what you see!

Pick the best tool to use for sharing your birds sightings:

• If you are new to the count, try using the Merlin Bird ID app.
• If you have participated in the count before, try eBird Mobile app or enter your bird list on the eBird website (desktop/laptop).
• If you are participating as a group, see instructions for Group Counting.

You can start entering bird lists at midnight local time on the first day of the count, anywhere in the world. Data entry remains open until March 1 but the information you enter should only be from the four days of the Great Backyard Bird Count.

Please visit the Birdcount.org website for more details.

The 2020 Great Backyard Bird Count broke records and attracted 268,674 participants who reported sightings of 6,942 species. Topping the list was the Northern Cardinal, Dark-Eyed Junco and Mourning Dove. Enthusiasts were excited to see the Red-bellied Woodpecker climb the charts!