Christmas Bird Count

The oldest and longest-running Citizen Science initiative, the Christmas Bird Count is conducted in over 1800 localities across Canada, the United States and Latin America. Each local group of birders picks a day between December 14th and January 5th inclusive, sets out a 24-km diameter circle, then does their best to count all the birds within that circle on the selected day. Local rivalries and the long history of the count have made it one of the biggest social and sporting events in the birding world. More important for bird conservation, however, is the huge database on the distribution and numbers of North American birds that the Christmas Bird Count has amassed.

If you have any questions regarding the Christmas Bird Count in Canada, please contact:

Dick Cannings, Bird Studies Canada’s Christmas Bird Count Coordinator
1330 Debeck Road S.11, C.96, RR#1, Naramata, BC V0H 1N0
Phone: (250) 496-4049
Email: dickcannings@shaw.ca

In Edmonton:
Dave Ealey, Alberta Sustainable Resource Development
Phone: (780) 434-0841
Email: dave.ealey@gov.ab.ca

The Christmas Bird Count is managed by Bird Studies Canada and the Audubon Society, with additional partners: Gulf Coast Bird Observatory in Mexico, and Instituto Humboldt and RNOA in Colombia.