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The Audubon Christmas Bird Count is the longest running community science program in the world.

That information is just so valuable to scientists, and it's just a great way to be a part of a

really fun tradition, but also contributing to science and our understanding of birds

and their populations.

It's Monday, January 6th, and you're listening to Science Friday.

I'm sci-fri producer Rasha Arredi.

Audubon just wrapped its 125th Christmas bird count,

an annual event in which bird urns across the Western Hemisphere trek outside to record all the

birds they see and hear. Scientists use all that data to understand how birds are faring,

where they're moving, and what they're

up to when it's not breeding season. So what makes this data so important and what have

scientists learned in those 125 years? Here's Ira Flito. That's what we're going to talk about

with my guest, Dr. Brooke Bateman, senior director of climate and community

science at the National Audubon Society in Stony Brook, New York, and Dr. Janet Ng,

wildlife biologist at Environment and Climate Change Canada in Regina, Canada. Welcome both of you

to Science Friday. Thanks for having us. It's great to be here. Thanks for having us.

You're welcome. Brooke, let's take a trip in the way back machine. I mean, how did the bird count

start over a century ago? Yeah, it's a pretty cool story. So back in 1900, Frank Chapman decided that

the traditional Christmas hunt was not the best idea. And he went and encouraged people in a newsletter called BirdLore to go out and do a Christmas census or go out and count birds instead and really was hopeful that folks would take this on board. And a few folks did. So the first year, we had 27 individuals from 25 different locations that decided to count birds instead of go hunting around the Christmas time period.

And about how many do you have now?

We have over 80,000 volunteers that participate across the entire Western Hemisphere.

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