MassWildLife: Counting birds, Your New Holiday Tradition
Looking for a way to give during the holiday season while also enjoying nature? A tradition that started Christmas Day in 1900 is now a long-standing program of the National Audubon Society. People across the state will spend the beginning of the winter counting birds, helping ornithologists gather data that would be difficult to collect on their own.
From December 15 to January 5, the Christmas Bird Count (CBC) will commence in the U.S., Canada, and 18 other countries in the Western Hemisphere. Countries are divided into geographical regions (35 in Massachusetts) and each region will pick a single 24-hour period to count birds.
Data from the CBC can be utilized in many ways, including to monitor trends in bird populations, document range shifts over time, and examine how climate change may impact the winter distributions of birds.CBC data has been used in hundreds of analyses, peer-reviewed publications, and government reports over the decades.
What birds are in MA in December?
There are a variety of feathered friends that can be seen in Massachusetts, including:
- Local residents: chickadees, titmice, many species of woodpeckers, bluebirds, Carolina wren, and many raptors.
- Migrants heading south for winter: kinglets, some raptors, snow bunting, some sparrows.
- Waterfowl: dabbling and diving ducks, especially along coast.
- Irruptive species that are only present in some years: finches like evening grosbeak, red crossbill, white-winged crossbill, redpoll, pine grosbeak, red-breasted nuthatch.
Count birds on a WMA
Many of MassWildlife's Wildlife Management Areas (WMA) fall within the CBC regions. Below is a table of top WMA locations to count birds. Check out the CBC circle map to sign up and participate. If you aren't able to get out to a WMA, learn how you can still participate in the CBC.
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