Today or tomorrow, actually!

And maybe not literally with me, as fun as that would be, but we can all participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count!

You don't have to count birds in your backyard - you can count them anywhere! A city park, a state park, a wildlife refuge, the local lake, anywhere is good. And you don't have to be an expert birder (I'm doing it, afterall) - just try to identify all the species that you can and estimate how many you see and send in your results. That's it! You can do it today (Sunday) or tomorrow (Monday).

I'll be going out to Rock Creek Park today to munch on some licorice and count some birds. Might go out somewhere tomorrow as well. So why don't you join me and we can all share our results?

Here are a few links that should answer all your questions:

http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/howto.html

http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/faqs-1/General_New/

http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/faqs-1/How_new/

Hat tip to for alerting me of this.

UPDATE:

Spent a couple hours in the woods in the woods and it was pretty cold and windy. Not many birds out during the first hour, but more the second. Here's what I saw:

1 Belted Kingfisher

3 Red-bellied Woodpeckers

2 Downy Woodpeckers (1 male, 1 female)

1 White-breasted Nuthatch

10 Dark-eyed Juncos

The Belted Kingfisher I've seen there before but never identified.... so happy to know what it is now. It flew low over Rock Creek giving a very loud rattle alarm call and then sat on a perch in the distance for a long time. Eventually, it flew back again and gave an alarm call at me again. Cute! Although I first saw and identified these during my trip in Virginia in January, I now know that I've seen them before and just didn't see their head and beak well enough to know what they were.

I saw a flash of a bird in the trees that I believe was a Pileated Woodpecker, but I'm not confident enough to submit it. I also heard some very loud drumming, but couldn't see the source, despite quite a bit of trying. Darn Woody didn't want me to find him today, apparently.

The black licorice was wonderful and reminded me of my birding trip a month and a half ago. Not the same alone, though. :-/