I spent about 5 hours in my backyard today, trimming off dead branches, repotting some members of my patio garden into larger pots, yanking weeds near my fence (I live off a "greenbelt", aka "flood plain"
), and cleaning my bird bath, among other things. It was pleasant work and I enjoyed the frequent visits from my area white-winged dove, mourning dove, inca dove, house finch and house sparrow community -- they kept trying to alight on my feeders, only to be spooked by this strange human (me -- glowing red with a sunburn, after awhile!) working in the yard.
I've been an off-and-on participant of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's
Project Feederwatch, their "citizen science" program to collect data from thousands of backyard birdwatchers across North America. Through the data Feederwatch Participants submit, the Lab's able to determine things like species distribution, declining populations, the spread of various diseases among some birds (such as house finches) and other interesting information.
Participants spend as little or as much time as they want observing their backyard birds, keeping track of which species are present. The Feederwatch membership packet includes helpful information on how to identify and count species, as usually has at least one nice color poster with common backyard bird species, to aid in identification. Participants submit their data either online or at the end of the Feederwatch data collection season, by mailing in a "ScanTron" type data booklet.
There's still time to join Project Feederwatch for this season -- data collection beings
November 8, 2003. FeederWatch is supported by annual participation fees of $15 per person.