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The Christmas Bird Count,
started by Frank Chapman along with 26 other
conservationists, was a way of promoting conservation by
counting, rather than hunting, birds on Christmas Day of
1900. Now in its second century, it has evolved into far
more than just another holiday tradition. The CBC, to
quote Geoff LeBaron, the CBC Director, “increasingly
accepted by ornithologists and conser-vationists alike as
the best, if not only, tool available for assessing the
long-term trends in the early winter bird populations of
North America". With the cumulative historical CBC data
now on-line, there are many thousands of individual
counts from December 25, 1900 to the present available
for perusal and scientific research.
THE BASICS:
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Circle: A
count must be entirely within a 15-mile (24
kilometer) diameter circle. See the
Cleveland circle above.
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Center Point:
The same center point should be used each
year. The Cleveland Count's center point
is Richmond and Chardon Roads.
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Circle
Overlap: Circles may not overlap or abut
neighboring counts.
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Count Period:
Your count needs to be conducted within the
official count period, 14 December thru 5
January, inclusive dates.
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Count Day:
Your count must be conducted within one
24-hour calendar day.
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Birds outside
the circle seen by an observer standing in
the circle should not be included in
your census data.
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Count Hours &
Observers: Minimums of full daylight hours
(at least 8 with exception of short daylight
areas or pelagic counts) in field with 10
observers are preferred for best annual
coverage.
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ID by Voice:
Birds may be identified by voice, but
specimens or tracks are cw (count week)
birds
(unless you can document the fact that the
specimen/track wasn’t present in the area
earlier than the
count day).
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Linear pelagic
CBC’s are allowed, if the boat follows the
same transect or covers the same area
each season.
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Audubon
requests that each CBC circle maintain one
point of contact for mailing of count
materials, receipt of update emails on the
CBC and data entry of the count data. This
“primary” circle contact needs to provide
name, address, email and phone numbers to
the Audubon Science office upon creation of
the circle. An email address is required for
this “primary” contact. This one “primary”
compiler may also designate other
“secondary” compilers to receive emails, but
only one main contact per circle can be
maintained for other reasons. The
Cleveland Count coordinator is KBC member,
Tom LePage. Contact Tom at 440 356-4035
if you are interested in joining a team.
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Source:
Compiler's Manual - National Audubon |
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