Take seven steps, stop, look, listen, repeat. That’s one of the biggest rules in birding, according to Michael Klotz.
He and a group of local birders gathered Thursday to help determine the trends of our feathered friends in the Lower Mainland. The first Christmas Bird Count since 2019 had enthusiasts head out to keep a tally of what they saw.
The annual event – largely put on hold during the pandemic – dates back more than century and is now North America’s longest-running citizen science project with participants in more than 2,000 locations across the Western Hemisphere.
“This circle itself started in 1964 here in Surrey. They started that count. The actual Christmas bird count started in 1900,” Klotz said.
The event began as an annual hunt, but as since morphed into a less lethal way to track bird populations.
Volunteers disperse and try to get a snapshot of where the birds are and log each confirmed sighting.
The data is then submitted online to the Audubon Society and Birds Canada and widely used to inform biologists, environmental planners and naturalists around the world. It allows them to compare trends in bird populations year-over-year.
“It’s really important that we understand what do our numbers look like? Are in increasing, are we decreasing? Are there different species?” Klotz said.
The data also helps the Nature Conservancy of Canada find out where they need to focus their conservation efforts.
Klotz says it takes a real passion and knowledge of birds, but also quite the ear.
“Your birding is 50 per cent listening to birds to see what they sound like. Identification is a little easier if you know what you’re listening for and then typically you hear them before you see them.”
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