Backyard Nature Wednesday: Great Backyard Bird Count

There's a big weekend coming up. No, not just President's Day with all the stores trying to lure you in with their giant, once-in-a-lifetime sales. It's even bigger than that, at least for us birders. It's the weekend of the Great Backyard Bird Count.

This will be the 19th such annual count of birds, a citizen science project that aims to find out just where the birds are and how they are doing in mid-winter. The count used to take place only in North America, but a couple of years ago, it went worldwide and now helps to track bird distribution all around the globe. There are participants on every continent - except perhaps Antarctica. And who knows? Maybe this year someone will chime in from there as well.

There is special interest this year because of the big El Niño event in the Pacific. It has disrupted weather patterns, heating up the ocean, and warming many areas that are normally cold at this time of year, and scientists are predicting that there may be a few surprises in store for the bird counters this year. They may find some species displaced from their normal wintering grounds and turning up in odd places.

Recently, for example, a Great Kiskadee, normally a resident of South Texas, showed up in South Dakota. Other unseasonal records have included an Orchard Oriole and a Chestnut-sided Warbler in the Northeast, much of which has had an unusually mild and snow-free winter up until now. It's a pretty safe bet that there will be other such reports this weekend.

The count is conducted over a four-day period, beginning Friday and ending Monday, President's Day. The event is held every year on the same weekend coinciding with President's Day. Participants observe and report birds from a specific site on any one or all of those four days. The site may be one's own backyard, which is where I do my counting, or it may be another selected and specified site including any public site such as a park, school campus, etc.

Citizen science projects like the Great Backyard Bird Count are providing important data that scientists rely upon to give them valuable information. It's a project that is open to all, regardless of the person's skill level. The observer can spend as little as fifteen minutes counting birds or can invest several hours over the entire weekend - you choose. Once the observations are made, you go online to the GBBC website (link in the first paragraph) and report what you saw. Easy peasy!

If you haven't participated in GBBC before, why not give it a try this year? I think you'll find it fun and you'll learn more about the birds in your area, which is always a good thing to do. It doesn't require any special tools - binoculars are helpful but not strictly necessary. Just go outside and look around. The birds are everywhere and they are waiting for you.

Male House Finch, a typical winter visitor to my feeders.

Poetry Sunday: Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver

How about we share another Mary Oliver poem? After all, you can never have too many of those. In this one, the poet seems to acknowledge that it is often hard to simply live in and enjoy the moment, perhaps because we are afraid it can't last. She urges us to give in to that moment and fully experience the joy. Although "much can never be redeemed, still, life has some possibility left." Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is no...

Poetry Sunday: Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney

My mother was a farm wife and a prodigious canner. She canned fruit and vegetables from the garden, even occasionally meat. But the best thing that she canned, in my opinion, was blackberry jam. Even as I type those words my mouth waters! Of course, before she could make that jam, somebody had to pick the blackberries. And that somebody was quite often named Dorothy. I think Seamus Heaney might have spent some time among the briars plucking those delicious black fruits as well, so he would have known that "Once off the bush the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour." They don't keep; you have to get that jam made in a hurry! Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney Late August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust ...

Poetry Sunday: Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman

You probably remember poet Amanda Gorman from her appearance at the inauguration of President Biden. She read her poem "The Hill We Climb" on that occasion. After the senseless slaughter in Uvalde this week, she was inspired to write another poem which was published in The New York Times. It seemed perfect for the occasion and so I stole it in order to feature it here, just in case you didn't get a chance to read it in the Times . Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman Everything hurts, Our hearts shadowed and strange, Minds made muddied and mute. We carry tragedy, terrifying and true. And yet none of it is new; We knew it as home, As horror, As heritage. Even our children Cannot be children, Cannot be. Everything hurts. It’s a hard time to be alive, And even harder to stay that way. We’re burdened to live out these days, While at the same time, blessed to outlive them. This alarm is how we know We must be altered — That we must differ or die, That we must triumph or try. ...

The Nature of Things

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