Project FeederWatch - Check It Out!

An annual survey of birds that visit feeders in winter

Filling up bird feeders is a labor of love for many backyard enthusiasts. The fun comes in watching who comes to feed through a favorite window.

Where else can you get a front row seat for a live show from the comfort of your own home?

It can be exciting to witness the flurry of birds coming to the feeders. It can be chickadees, cardinals, sparrows, goldfinches, woodpeckers, nuthatches and wrens. Maybe it is an unusual bird, one that you have not seen before, and one that sends you running for the field guide.

These sightings may make you wonder why these birds are here in the fall and winter. A common concern is that by feeding, you are preventing them from migrating. The cues for bird migration occur in the fall when natural food is most plentiful. Migration in birds is a genetically programmed hormonal response to changes in day length. So keep on filling those feeders! In many cases if you get an unusual bird to visit the feeder is that the creature is simply off course.

Project Feeder Watch is a program you can participate in by recording the numbers and kinds of birds that visit your feeder. This project started in Ontario, Canada in the 1970 ‘s and came to the U.S. in 1987 to be run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The first year in the U.S. had 4,000 participants and by 2005 over 15,000 are sending in reports from all 50 states.

Filling up bird feeders is a labor of love for many backyard enthusiasts. This study helps biologists answer questions such as how disease is spread among back yard birds visiting feeders, food and environmental factors and expansion or contraction of ranges of feeder visitors. Results of these findings are published in scientific magazines and recognized national magazines such as Birdwatcher Digest and newspaper articles.

According to data collected by the 2004-2005 Project Feeder Watch birds that could be found at least 70% of the time at Maryland feeders were as follows: Cardinal, Junco, Gold Finch, House Finch, Mourning Dove, Tufted Titmouse, Chickadees, Downy Woodpecker, Carolina Wren, Red Bellied Woodpecker, White Breasted Nuthatch, and White-Throated Sparrow.

That is quite a variety of songbirds to view, not including another eleven species that might make an appearance on a regular basis, 25-50% of the time to the feeder watch area from late November to early April.

If this sounds like something you would like to be a part of, it's easy to sign up.

Call Project FeederWatch Toll Free at 1-800-843-2473 or join via the Internet at www.birds.cornell.edu/pfw

It is a wonderful way to help scientists learn more about birds and have a good time doing it!

Acknowledgements:

• This article by Marilyn Mause, adapted from from the Autumn 2005 Issue of Habichat.

• Photograph of Mourning Dove Zenaida macroura) courtesy of Gene Oleynik, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

• Photograph of Red-bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus) courtesy of Gene Oleynik, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.