by John Besser, Christmas Bird Count Chair

With all our section leaders in place for this year, the Christmas Bird Count (CBC) is a go! Thankfully, birding is a safe, outdoor activity and we have plenty of birders in Columbia that plan to do just that. We will send out our teams on Saturday Dec. 17th. Please contact your section leader if you have worked with someone in the past to get details for your job. If you haven’t participated recently (or are a newbie!) please email me at lottie.bushmann@gmail.com and we’ll get you on a team. All experience levels are welcome.

• Columbia Audubon has a strong tradition with participation in this amazing citizen scientist project. Please read Bill Clark’s article in the Nov. 2021 Chat at this link to learn more about this historic event. Plan to use safe practices if riding in a car. Consider wearing masks and having open windows—all the better to see the birds if you’re car birding.
• We’ll use ebird to compile our data as well as a count during the Chili Supper. Simply share your ebird lists from the day with the username: casbirddata.
• Not interested in going out to bird but would like your feeder birds included in the count? If your home is within our 16 mile count circle, you can submit an ebird list and share it with casbirddata. If you’re not sure if your home is in the area, email me and I’ll help you figure it out. Not an ebird user? You can still participate by emailing me a list of your yardbirds and I can submit an ebird list on your behalf. This is another fun way to become involved and make your birds count.
• We’ll top off the day at 5:30 with a chili supper at Fairview Community of Christ Church, 1111 S. Fairview Rd., where participants can chat about their day and share stories. We’ll look at species totals and see how this year stacks up against previous years. The Chili Supper is potluck. We need contributions of chili, bread, veggies and desserts. If you weren’t able to sign-up to bring a contribution, you can email Judy Lincoln at lincolnj@missouri.edu to find out what we still need to round out our dinner.

LOOK FOR CBC RESULTS in the January CHAT newsletter.
QUESTIONS? Ask John Besser (jbesser1@gmail.com) or Lottie Bushmann (lottie.bushmann@gmail.com)