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Project FeederWatch


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4 hours ago, Charlie Spencer said:

How is it different?  

Thanks. 

https://feederwatch.org/about/detailed-instructions/

Instead of just going into your yard, watching birds for a few minutes, and noting what you see and hear, you have to specifically only count birds seen around your feeder site (including predators and tag-alongs), can't count obvious males/females separately (to keep the methodology consistent across species), have to combine the high counts between two days, and must wait a few days before doing another count.

The scope of the project is to measure the impact of bird-feeding across North America and track population variance.

Edited by Zoroark
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  • 1 month later...

@SirVive If I have a busy workweek and can't watch on my days, I may push them to the first two days where I can watch, then I just make those my regular watch days until it happens again. For instance, this year I started off watching on Wednesday and Thursday. I went to California the second week and came back on a Tuesday, so I continued watching on those two days. A very busy week in early January pushed them to Sunday and Monday, where they remain. Here's how this season has gone so far:

1901007543_Screenshotfrom2023-02-1208-08-36.png.434b1571afcb261ca805300777958269.png

@Snake Fingers Indeed, you could watch someone else's yard if you're there frequently enough.

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@Cyanocitta cristata said

Quote

Isn't it counterintuitive that you have to pay for it?

Welcome to Whatbird, Cyanocitta cristata. I had no idea that you had to pay to participate in any of the science based bird counting events, especially events held in your own backyard. I understand the need to raise funds to keep things operating, I just didn't know they did their fundraising this way. I could see the fee causing hesitation amongst some bird watchers. If people struggle to pay for birdseed, having to pay to count the birds that eat that seed might be a bit too much for some. It's too bad that some good data is likely to be lost because of the $.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I've done PFW the past two seasons.

I try to do 4-5 hrs per two-day counting period . . . last week I had three species (house sparrow, house finch, bc chickadee). It was horribly boring, by far the fewest species I've had in a count. Overall, I enjoy doing it and have seen plenty of interesting interactions. Cannot wait for spring migration!

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