One of the subspecies of dark-eyed junco is the Oregon junco (male) pictured here at a silo feeder filled with small black sunflower seeds. The junco’s call is a rich trill one pitch. Dark-eyed juncos are permanent residents in most of the western states.

The Great Backyard Bird Count is a four-day event that takes place annually in February. This year the count took place from Feb. 16-19. It was the 27th anniversary of the Great Backyard Bird Count. Together with other citizen scientists we watched, learned about, counted, and celebrated birds. The results of the count are now out.

Overall, citizen scientists found 7,920 species of the world’s known species. To our knowledge the total number of species is the world is about 10,000. Hundreds of countries shared their bird sightings. This year more people participated in the count than ever before. In total, there were about 642,000 global participants. Over 600,000 photos, videos and soundtracks were added to the Macaulay Library. All will be valuable for future research and for Merlin Bird ID app identifications.

The U.S. submitted more checklists than any other country or region with 212,673, followed by India and Canada. USA participants identified 676 species. Increases in submissions occurred for Florida, California and Texas. The warmest states exhibited the greatest diversity in species. California, Texas, Florida, Arizona and Louisiana each reported hundreds of species.

In Washington, 6,517 checklists were submitted and all 39 counties participated. Washington placed sixth among the top-10 states with 227 species. California placed first with 380 species, and Oregon came in seventh with 226 species reported. Pacific County reported 102 species Clatsop County, Oregon reported 138 species.

The top-10 species observed in Pacific County were comprised mainly of waterbirds and shorebirds, as expected. Dunlin ranked number one with 1,000 birds reported, followed by cackling goose, marbled godwit, European starling, western sandpiper, Canada goose, mallard, American wigeon, green-winged teal and sanderling.

Many of you are familiar with the Merlin Bird ID app. The use of the app was found to have been widely used around the world. The United Kingdom, U.S., Canada, Costa Rica, India, Germany and Mexico made heavy use of the app. The most frequent birds identified by app in the U.S. were the northern cardinal, dark-eyed junco and house finch.

Merlin assists with the identification of birds by description, sound or by photograph. As an aside, birders must be careful to be sure that Merlin is correct. In other words, we should have an idea as to what the bird we are asking about might be, such as a sparrow, a finch or a hawk and the habitat is which we saw or heard the bird. This helps Merlin’s scrutiny of the data in the Macaulay Library, which it accesses for IDing birds. Merlin isn’t infallible, however, especially if there aren’t a lot of data in the library on the species being identified or if we don’t describe things adequately, etc.

If you are interested in more results of the Great Backyard Bird Count you can find the information at ggbc@birds.cornell.edu. The Great Backyard Bird Count is an international partnership between Cornell, Audubon and Birds Canada. Mark your calendars! Next year’s GBBC is Feb. 14–17, 2025.