Audubon’s Leadbetter Christmas Bird Count tales flight

Published 10:36 am Tuesday, December 8, 2015

PENINSULA — Audubon’s Leadbetter Christmas Bird Count (CBC) will take place on Dec. 19. The Leadbetter Count Circle includes the Long Beach Peninsula from 185th Street North, Willapa Bay and the east side of the bay to Bay Center.

“The annual CBC bird survey is one of the largest, longest-running citizen science efforts in the world,” said bird enthusiast Suzy Whittey. “The data collected by observers over the past century allow Audubon researchers, conservation biologists, wildlife agencies to study the long-term health and status of bird populations around the world.”

According to Whittey, the first count began on Christmas Day in 1900 when Frank Chapman, an ornithologist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, proposed it as an alternative to hunting birds on Christmas. Twenty-seven people in 25 different locations across the continent participated that first year and counted about 90 species.

Today the CBC takes place annually between Dec. 14 and Jan. 5 and typically more than 30,000 people worldwide count over 2,400 species — about 65 to 70 million birds each year.

Last year’s Christmas Bird Count in North America was a record high year with 652 species. A single birding circle is 15 miles in diameter.

To participate in this year’s Leadbetter Christmas Bird Count, contact Suzy Whittey at suzy@reachone.com and include “Leadbetter CBC” in the subject line.

For additional information on birding in the region, please contact the Long Beach Peninsula Visitors Bureau at 642-2400 or at ask@funbeach.com or access funbeach.com/birding-2/.