Cornell’s Project Feederwatch is a great way to make your feeder visitors “count.” Project Feederwatch is basically a winter-long, continent-wide survey of feeding station visitors. For a small ($15) registration fee you receive instructions, an identification poster, a wall calendar, a bird feeding guide, data forms, and a quarterly newsletter.

I believe that projects such as these, collectively referred to as “citizen science,” are of tremendous value. Observers collecting the data learn about identification, status, distribution, and population trends. Researchers can use this data in broad-scale, long-term trend analysis projects. Data can be entered on-line or by mailing in paper data sheets.

One of the best features of Project Feederwatch for participants, and everyone else, is the on-line data exploration page which lets everyone view data summaries, maps, and graphs all assembled from the data sent in by Feederwatch participants. More than 10,000 people now participate, providing for a lot of great information on backyard birds.