One great thing about birds: They're everywhere.
"They're this really powerful ecological, uniting group of species," said Becca Rodomsky-Bish, project leader for the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC), the annual participatory science event to be held Feb. 13-16. "No matter where you are, you can feel connected and engaged with birds that are living around you."
Fostering that connection is part of the mission of the global event, co-sponsored by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology: It encourages participants to engage with the natural world where they live, which in turn helps them feel connected to conservation more broadly. After significant growth over the last five years, organizers expect nearly 1 million people to participate this year, and the data collected will provide a global snapshot of bird populations just before migration.
"It's important to catalogue the status of birds around the world at this moment in time, because in short order, many are going to be moving," Rodomsky-Bish said.
To participate in the event, people spend a minimum of 15 minutes over the four-day period watching birds and uploading the type and number of birds they see, either through the eBird app or the Merlin Bird ID app. New participants can get further instruction on the program website or can attend one of two webinars, on Feb. 5 at 3 p.m. or Feb. 11 at 7 p.m. Birders can also search for events in their communities - in Ithaca, the Cayuga Bird Club will host a birding event in Stewart Park on Feb. 14.
All data will be logged in eBird, a widely used conservation database created by the Lab of Ornithology that integrates data from the public, as well as from researchers and conservation organizations. The database was cited in nearly 250 research papers last year, including studies of bird behavior but other species as well - for example, a recent study used eBird data to track pollinator populations.
"Birds really are eco-indicators," Rodomsky-Bish said. "So we can actually use this data to begin to understand the presence or absence of populations of other types of organisms that are harder to track and identify."
Participation in the GBBC has grown steadily but began to spike five years ago - by more than 100,000 people each year - when the program started incorporating entries from the Merlin App, which helps novice birders easily identify birds by their songs. Last year, more than 800,000 people participated from nearly every country, identifying 8,078 birds. Rodomsky-Bish said the milestone of 1 million participants is within reach this year.
For Rodomsky-Bish, the increased popularity of the event - and of the Merlin App - reflects a hunger to connect to nature, especially when much of our lives are spent in front of screens.
"Inherently, humans want to be connected to the natural world, and I think birds are this very accessible way to find that connection," she said. "I have to say, too, that the tools are also just phenomenal. To be able to hit record and literally have the species of birds that are singing and calling given to you - it feels relevant. It's local. And it's really interesting, like you're making these personal scientific discoveries."
For this year's count, Rodomsky-Bish said she'll be looking out for a greater abundance of smaller songbirds - like northern redpolls, evening grosbeaks and pine siskins - which in North America are predicted to winter farther south than usual.
Rodomsky-Bish is also looking forward to something that happens every year: community building.
"The world feels really small when you start to see all these submissions coming in from literally everywhere," she said. "More than anything, the GBBC is about people coming together and sharing the joy of birds, because birds are spectacular and wonderful and inspiring - and they're everywhere."
The GBBC is a joint project of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the National Audubon Society and Birds Canada, with funding support from Wild Birds Unlimited.
