Greetings, hearty Coursers! Welcome to the start of another STC week. (Who knew that weeks started on Wednesdays? Oh well.) My excuse for tardiness is the hectic pace of life in a New Year. Do the rest of you feel that things really speed up in the first few months of a year? For one thing, in the USA at least, the tax deadline looms, and that means gathering a lot of receipts that you may not have kept organized so well during the past year. And then there is all the stress wrought by the pandemic, which I shall not reprise today. And the mess in Washington, 'nuff said.
In so many ways, it is as though we are on a treadmill that speeds up automatically no matter how we set the controls. Ah but February 12-15, Friday through Monday, Valentine's Day weekend, there will come an event that slows the pace down and does the heart good. It is something you can do with the whole family, or alone, or hugging your Valentine sweetie. And you can participate as much or as little as you wish -- no pressure.
It is the annual Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC). Hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world sit in their yards and identify birds, or go on long or short hikes to see what species they can see. And then they log in to report what birds they can identify. And from all the worldwide data amassed, scientists can learn about such things as the migratory patterns of assorted species, and differences among birds in diverse backgrounds. This global happening is sponsored by the National Audubon Society, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and Bird Studies Canada.
You can learn much more by going to birdcount.org where you can open your own account and report your counts this Friday through Monday. I discovered it in 2013 and started blogging about my observations then. Back then, joy came easily because we had backyard feeders that attracted a wide variety of birds. Since then, bears from a nearby nature preserve have discovered backyard feeders as a supplemental food source and so reluctantly I have joined other neighbors in taking down all feeders. I wouldn't want my Junkyard Dawg to tangle with a Mama Grizzly protecting her cubs.
Ah, but there is no requirement that you have to sit on your rear end to take part in the GBBC. My blogposts remind me of all the fun of combining dawgwalking and birdwatching -- maybe I could coin "birdwalking" as a new term. Even if you don't spot a great many birds, you get some good healthy exercise. And once in a while you may be surprised by a bird you've never seen before -- like the Wood Stork I ran across at a lake's edge the other day. And even if you just walk with visions of bluebirds dancing in your head, there are other mental-health benefits, as I tried to describe in this birdwalking blogpost:
"As we walked, it was under one of those deep blue ("Carolina blue") skies that is like a gateway to Heaven. There were no clouds in this sky, just the daytime outline of a crescent moon. It was enough to take your breath away."
If any of you Coursers decide to participate in the GBBC this weekend, please post your sightings and experiences here.
Cheers,
Superbob
In so many ways, it is as though we are on a treadmill that speeds up automatically no matter how we set the controls. Ah but February 12-15, Friday through Monday, Valentine's Day weekend, there will come an event that slows the pace down and does the heart good. It is something you can do with the whole family, or alone, or hugging your Valentine sweetie. And you can participate as much or as little as you wish -- no pressure.
It is the annual Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC). Hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world sit in their yards and identify birds, or go on long or short hikes to see what species they can see. And then they log in to report what birds they can identify. And from all the worldwide data amassed, scientists can learn about such things as the migratory patterns of assorted species, and differences among birds in diverse backgrounds. This global happening is sponsored by the National Audubon Society, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and Bird Studies Canada.
You can learn much more by going to birdcount.org where you can open your own account and report your counts this Friday through Monday. I discovered it in 2013 and started blogging about my observations then. Back then, joy came easily because we had backyard feeders that attracted a wide variety of birds. Since then, bears from a nearby nature preserve have discovered backyard feeders as a supplemental food source and so reluctantly I have joined other neighbors in taking down all feeders. I wouldn't want my Junkyard Dawg to tangle with a Mama Grizzly protecting her cubs.
Ah, but there is no requirement that you have to sit on your rear end to take part in the GBBC. My blogposts remind me of all the fun of combining dawgwalking and birdwatching -- maybe I could coin "birdwalking" as a new term. Even if you don't spot a great many birds, you get some good healthy exercise. And once in a while you may be surprised by a bird you've never seen before -- like the Wood Stork I ran across at a lake's edge the other day. And even if you just walk with visions of bluebirds dancing in your head, there are other mental-health benefits, as I tried to describe in this birdwalking blogpost:
"As we walked, it was under one of those deep blue ("Carolina blue") skies that is like a gateway to Heaven. There were no clouds in this sky, just the daytime outline of a crescent moon. It was enough to take your breath away."
If any of you Coursers decide to participate in the GBBC this weekend, please post your sightings and experiences here.
Cheers,
Superbob
