Canada Birding Photography Locations & Reports

Every year since I started bird watching, I’ve taken part in a mid-February event, called The Great Backyard Bird Count. In the dead of our Canadian winter, its a good excuse to get out of your abode and into nature or just sit at your window and observe. All over North America, people of all walks of life, all ages and bird watching skill levels take part in counting all birds of all species they see over a specified weekend in February. This years count is Feb 15th-18th. You can count 1 day or every day. Don’t let the name of the event fool you, you can count birds in your yard,but you can also count birds at a local park,lake,field or anywhere else you see them. Last year,over 81000 checklists were submitted, reporting 613 species and over 11 million birds.
The project is a joint effort of The Cornell Lab of Ornithology and The Audubon Society. Together with us “citizen scientists” a comprehensive picture of where birds spend the winter is composed. These findings are very useful to study population trends and effects of weather on bird movements,just to name a few of the areas which observations aid in. Photos can be submitted and there is even a photo contest.
  My personal opinion is that since I birdwatch this time of year regularly and keep lists of what  see, I might just as well be useful,and submit my observations. Its a great excuse to get out and shake the February blahs. you just never know what you mite find. I try to cover less birded areas,in the interest of not duplicating counts of others and possibly discovering something special. So get out there and see what YOU can find,whether its alone or gather up some friends or family. Take your kids,grandkids,nieces or nephews and use it to introduce them to the natural world and get them interested in helping advance science.
 
For complete details,see http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/ I look forward to seeing some posts about what you saw.