This past Sunday morning a crowd of binocular toting ornithologists, urban park rangers and amateur birders of all ages gathered at Central Park for the National Audubon Society's 114th annual Christmas Bird Count.
In 1900, Dr. Frank Chapman, the editor of what is now Audubon Magazine, devised the event as an alternative to the holiday tradition of bird hunting. The count has now become a tradition in itself with over 70,000 birders covering the northern hemisphere and tallying more than 60 million birds each year.
This year the team of investigators found 5,414 birds representing 62 species, including 165 blue jays, 78 cardinals and one bald eagle. According to John Rowden, Audubon's manager of research and evaluation, "It's not meant to be a scientifically strict count of exactly how many birds there are in the park. The data show us trends in what's going on with the birds."
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Photo Credit: Wall Street Journal