The Great Backyard Bird Count is on! Here's how to get involved

If you love looking out the window at the birds that visit your yard, your expertise is needed.

The Great Backyard Bird Count is back, and it requires you to do a little bit of citizen science—in other words, identify and document any birds you see.

And there's more to this event than just plain old fun. It helps bird researchers better understand migration patterns and whether a bird species is thriving or not.

Last year, half a million people from 200 countries took part in the weekend bird count, with Canadians submitting 33,000 checklists and 24,000 individual bird IDs on the Merlin app.

“That put us in the number three position just behind the United States and India for participation, and we just have a fraction of the population,” Kerrie Wilcox of Birds Canada tells The Weather Network.

This year, Wilcox says there may be fewer birds spotted in some backyards because of a lack of snow. The birds will have an easier time finding natural food and won’t have to rely on feeders.

How to get started

If you're new to bird watching and aren’t sure what you’re looking at, Wilcox encourages you to get the Merlin Bird I.D. app which will help identify the species by asking a series of questions. Once identified you can add it to the official bird count.

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The Bird Count website has a live map that lights up in different countries as people check in birds.

If you want to get involved in this year’s Great Backyard Bird Count along with thousands of other Canadians, go to birdcount.org for everything you’ll need to get started.

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Thumbnail image by Cheryl Santa Maria, made with graphical elements from Canva Pro. This report was published with files from Cheryl Santa Maria.