Fort Collins, CO – Audubon Rockies has partnered with two great stores in Fort Collins, Wild Birds Unlimited and Jax Ranch and Home, to celebrate this year’s Great Backyard Bird Count (Feb 12-15) by giving participants a free block of suet to attract birds to your home, office, or school. Simply come in to the Wild Birds Unlimited or Jax Ranch and Home from February 7th through the 15th during store hours to receive your gift while supplies last. Suet is a combination of fat and seed that attracts winter hardy birds such as chickadees and woodpeckers who stay in Colorado unlike many migrating birds. The suet was generously donated by MWES in Loveland.
The Great Backyard Bird Count takes place each Presidents Day Weekend and is a free, fun, and easy event that engages bird watchers of all ages in counting birds to create a real-time snapshot of bird populations. Participants are asked to count birds for as little as 15 minutes (or as long as they wish) on one or more days of the four-day event and report their sightings online at birdcount.org.
Anyone can take part in the Great Backyard Bird Count, from beginning bird watchers to experts, and you can participate from your backyard, or anywhere in the world.
Last year, more than 143,000 volunteers in 100-plus countries shattered the previous record for the number of species tallied during the annual citizen science survey with birdwatchers recording 5,090 species, or 48 percent of the world’s total avian species—some 792 more species than 2014!
“The Great Backyard Bird Count gives adults and kids alike the opportunity to get to know the 400+ species of birds that live and migrate through our great State of Colorado,” says Alison Holloran, vice president and executive director of Audubon Rockies. “Not only that, but the Great Backyard Bird Count also lets you be a scientist for a few days – knowing the information you collect helps us better monitor and conserve our bird populations.”
Learn more about how to take part in the Great Backyard Bird Count at rockies.audubon.org. The GBBC is a joint project of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society with partner Bird Studies Canada and is made possible in part by sponsor Wild Birds Unlimited.
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Audubon Rockies is a regional office of The National Audubon Society, with dedicated staff work in Wyoming and Colorado. The National Audubon Society works to protect birds and their habitats throughout the Americas using science, advocacy, education and on-the-ground conservation. Audubon’s state programs, chapters and partners have an unparalleled wingspan that reaches millions of people each year to inform, inspire and unite diverse communities in conservation action. Audubon is a nonprofit conservation organization. Learn more at http://rockies.audubon.org/.