For the City-Times

The Aldo Leopold Audubon Society invites all birders and nature enthusiasts to participate in its annual census of winter birds, the Christmas Bird Count.

Volunteers for the Stevens Point count will meet at Chase Bank parking lot (by The Wisconsin River and Clark Street bridge) at 7 AM on Saturday, December 14th to join one of eight teams, each with an experienced leader. Birders of all skill levels are welcome and there is no charge.

Sponsored by National Audubon, the CBC originated as a protest to the traditional “side hunt” shoot of birds and small mammals on Christmas day.  From its modest beginnings with 27 birders, the CBC has become the longest-running  and most significant citizen-based conservation effort in the world, with nearly 60,000 volunteers throughout the Americas and beyond.

Each count area is a 15-mile diameter circle- about 177 square miles- within which birders count every bird seen or heard in one 24-hour period.

The Stevens Point circle, centered on Old Main, UWSP, is geographically divided into eight sections. Volunteers canvass urban and rural neighborhoods, roadsides, streams, woods and fields, feed lots and river bottoms for the greatest coverage possible.

Results of all counts are compiled by National Audubon Society and Patuxent Wildlife Research Center to study population trends for several important species; CBC data provide key insights regarding species at risk, species in need of closer study, and appropriate conservation action.

In addition to providing valuable information on wintering bird populations, the CBC offers the fun and fellowship of a day in the field and the countdown after. ALAS sponsors two counts in Portage  County.

If you would like to join a count, call one of the coordinators listed below:

STEVENS POINT:   Nancy Stevenson  715-341-0084

AMHERST:  Karen Dostal  715-592-4706

WISCONSIN RAPIDS: Dar Tiede  920-997-9418