The Sport of Citizen Science
Young bird watcher
I enjoy watching birds in my yard, and honestly anywhere I go, and I’m not alone. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, bird watching has exploded into the number one recreational “sport” in North America, with over 96 million people who participate in birdwatching activities in the U.S. alone. More than 1/3 of people age 16 and older look for feathered friends! The sport of bird watching doesn’t have a specific uniform, other than dressing for the weather, but there are many items you can use to help you be successful. From field guides to bird song apps, binoculars to spotting scopes, and of course bird feeders and every kind of seed and suet imaginable, if you want to attract birds to your own piece of the Earth.
Some might argue that it isn’t a sport, but serious birders will walk miles to see a particular “life bird” for their “life list”. Some birders try to accumulate the most birds seen in a lifetime, year, or the earliest sighting of a particular bird (which they list as FOY or first of year). Even more coveted, if you are an “extreme sport” birder, are the number of species you might see when birding during Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count, or the number of points you can accumulate while birding from sunup to sundown during the local “Superbowl of Birding” competition. The “rarer” the bird, the more points your team receives. If you asked the participants, I’m sure they would tell you the most important thing that happens during these counts or competitions is the data collected is used to assess the health of bird populations, and to help guide conservation actions.
In 2000, I learned of a Citizen Science monitoring project called Project FeederWatch based out of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York. At that time, they were in their 14th year of a continent-wide survey of North American feeder birds. We decided to introduce the survey to our Great Bay Kids’ Ecology Club participants who attended sessions at the Discovery Center on Saturdays. We took time out of our mornings to have the students learn common backyard feeder birds and help tally them. Not only were they discovering some of the birds they might see around their own houses, but they were helping to collect data for a national program as citizen scientists. FeederWatch scientists then analyze all the incoming data each year to draw a picture of winter bird abundance and distribution. A sport and a science all in one-the perfect combo!
We have continued to conduct bird surveys from the Discovery Center upstairs windows since 2000. This means we have over 25 years of our own data to look at and learn from. A couple interesting things jumped out at me after looking back over the online tally sheets. The greatest number of species we ever recorded in one day was 24 (yes, right out our upstairs window!), but we’ve had 47 different species visit our feeders over the last 25 years. If I had to pick one species that has been the most exciting to watch, it would be the Eastern Bluebirds. In 2023, a record high number of these beautiful birds was set in NH during another great citizen science count administered by NH Audubon, the Backyard Winter Bird Survey. According to New Hampshire Audubon, the number of Eastern Bluebirds counted in 2023 was 2,221, which is a significant increase from 2002 when less than 50 were counted. In 2025, participants recorded just shy of 5,000 bluebirds around the state!
We didn’t start seeing these during our count periods until 2008. Each year since then their little flock has grown to a high of 10 individuals, until this year. We have only recorded a single bluebird on one count day at the beginning of December 2025. So where is our little flock? We look forward to seeing the bluebird numbers from the NH counts this year, but certainly hope they return to our mealworm and suet feeders before the season is finished.
If you enjoy feeding the birds during the months of December through March (suggested window set by NHFG to prevent bears at your feeders) you can participate in Project FeederWatch. You need only to keep a feeder full and peek out your window every so often to see what birds might be enjoying the fare. Record those birds, the weather, and a few other details over a two-day span each week, and you too can become a citizen scientist. Visit www.birds.cornell.edu to get started. If a weekly count is too much of a commitment, go to https://nhaudubon.org/education/birds-and-birding/backyard-winter-bird-survey/ to participate in NH Audubon’s Backyard Winter Bird Survey for just one weekend out of the year. Fill your feeders and explore your yard! It is coming up soon on February 14th & 15th, 2026.
-Beth Heckman, Assistant Education Coordinator (and bird watching enthusiast)
