The 8^th annual Great Backyard Bird Count will soon be here! The theme this year is "North America's Great Backyard." Count yourself among the tens of thousands of folks all across the United States and Canada who will be watching and counting birds in their backyards, in local parks and even from the comfort of their own homes for this yearly tally of winter birds. Last year, 42,509 bird checklists were submitted. They included 554 bird species from Florida to Saskatchewan. An amazing 4,305,109 individual birds were counted by the observers, who included birders of every skill level and age group.

Do you have to be an expert birder? No! Do you have to see certain species? No! Do you need any special equipment? No! You just need at least 15 minutes on one or more of the four days of the long weekend and a place where you can observe the birds around you. If you are watching your feeders, you don't even need binoculars. Most observers will see only common birds, the ones who frequent their feeders. Last year's "top bird" was the mourning dove. The point is to collect data on the numbers of all winter birds, both common and not-so-common, to feed into the databank, which enables scientists to track population trends over the years. The data you-the citizen scientist-collect will be recorded and analyzed by ornithologists from National Audubon and the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, joint partners in this and other citizen science projects.

It's fun. It's a good family or classroom project. And it's satisfying to know that you are making a contribution to bird population science and providing information that can ultimately help to preserve habitat. You will quickly get the hang of counting birds and reporting the highest number of each species you see at any one time. There is no fee or registration form. You can learn more about the program and find instructions for participating, results of last year's count and help with tricky bird ID's at www.birdsource.org/gbybc. Most public libraries in our area can set you up with Internet access if you do not have it at home.