Christmas Bird Count

History

In the 19th century, many North Americans participated in the tradition of Christmas "side hunts", in which they competed at how many birds they could kill. In December 1900, the U.S. ornithologist Frank Chapman, founder of Bird-Lore (which became Audubon magazine), proposed counting birds on Christmas instead of killing them.

On Christmas Day of that year, 27 observers took part in the first count in 25 places in the United States and Canada. The participants counted 18,500 birds in 90 species. Since then the counts have been held every winter, usually with increasing numbers of observers. The 101st count, in the winter of 2000–2001, involved 52,471 people in 1,823 places in 17 countries (but mostly in the U.S. and Canada). During the 113th count (winter 2012–2013), 71,531 people participated in 2,369 locations. The National Audubon Society partners with Bird Studies Canada, the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory of Texas (responsible for CBCs in Mexico), and the Red Nacional de Observadores de Aves (RNOA, National Network of Bird Observers) and the Instituto Alexander von Humboldt of Colombia.

The greatest number of bird species ever reported by a CBC circle in the world is 531, observed on December 21, 2013, in the Cosanga-Narupa count (previously known as the Yanayacu count) on the eastern slope of the Andes in Ecuador. The greatest number of bird species ever reported by any U.S. location in a single count is 250, observed on December 19, 2005, in the Matagorda County-Mad Island Marsh count circle around Matagorda and Palacios, Texas.