2020 Christmas Bird Count

The annual San Marcos Christmas Bird Count isn’t an official SMGA event, but it’s nonetheless one that many of our members enjoy. Spearheaded by Rebekah Rylander, this year’s event will take place on Sunday, Dec. 20. Individuals may sign up by contacting her at [email protected]m.

As birder Stephen Ramirez notes, “There will be some changes this year for Covid—no big groups, no carpooling, masks, social distancing, no lunch or dinner gatherings.”

Rebekah notes that she is “looking for a few folks to do some solo-birding along roadways and possibly some smaller parks/residential areas. This is a good option if you would rather not be in a group at all (completely understandable). I’m also fine with people birding the feeders in their yard. This counts too!”

Explaining how the CBC is organized, Rebekah says, “I assign people to an area within our designated ‘count circle’ to bird for the morning (and into the afternoon, if desired). Depending on skill level and comfort, I can place people into small groups with ‘experts’ who are great at teaching people about our local avifauna, or I can let them bird solo. They just need to contact me—say by the 16^th—so I can figure out where to place them. I have to be in the ‘know’ with where people are birding because we cannot double-count areas, else our data submission to Audubon isn’t accurate. That’s the only hitch really. I just have to keep all of my ducklings in their places so we accumulate accurate citizen science results.”

 

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Written by Susan Hanson, Loop editor, Outreach Committee chair, and board member.