Today I participated in the Great Backyard Bird Count for the first time
and enjoyed it immensely. In case you don't know, the GBBC involves
people all over the USA and Canada counting birds at a certain spot for
a certain amount of time (between Feb 12 and 15)and reporting (on an
internet site) the largest number of each species that is counted at any
one moment during that time.

I chose the area around my feeders hanging on the Hazel(nut) tree and on
the ground and bushes nearby and counted the birds listed below within
30 minutes. I kept watching for another 1 1/2 hours, hoping the
mourning doves, goldfinch, song sparrow, and chestnut backed chickadees
would show up. They spend most of the day at my feeders every day, but
not today! Some of them may have been intimidated by so many Evening
Grosbeaks.
Here's what I counted:

Northern Flicker (Red-shafted) - 1
Steller's Jay - 3
Black-capped Chickadee - 3
Red-breasted Nuthatch - 1
Spotted Towhee (Pacific) - 4
Fox Sparrow (Sooty) - 1
Dark-eyed Junco (Oregon) - 13
Pine Siskin - 21
Evening Grosbeak - 28

I know there were more Junco, Towhees, Siskin, and Grosbeaks, and there
are three Fox Sparrows that live here, but I could only count the
largest number that were all there at the same time. (In other words,
if 3 Jays come and fly away and later 2 Jays come, you can only count
that as 3 Jays.)

PS: something else exciting here today, the sun is shining through to
earth, and the daffodils are coming up!

Darlene
Cinebar

If you want to see the totals for the two countries, you can go to
http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/ and click on "Explore the Results."

The Great Backyard Bird Count is a joint project of the Cornell Lab of
Ornithology and National Audubon Society. For more information about
either of thoes entities, go to http://www.birds.cornell.edu/Membership
or http://www.audubon.org/gbbc/index.shtml