Audubon Society Christmas Bird Count 2012

It's time once again to start planning for the National Audubon Society Christmas Bird Count!  Frank Gardner will be organizing the count in the Bedford sector of the Concord Christmas Bird Count. The count which will be on Sunday, December 30th.  

The portion of Bedford which falls within the official count circle area is small and limited to the southwest corner of Bedford, but we have done a great job finding lots of good birds in our area in past years.

Please let Frank (frg444@gmail.com) know if you are interested in participating this year, so we can divide up the various areas appropriately to get good coverage and accurate counts of birds.  We will also have a planning meeting at the Bedford Starbucks at 7pm on December 27th.  Please let Frank know if you can attend that as well.

Your response by December 24th is most appreciated.  See you soon!

Christmas Bird Count Results

Frank Gardner shared results from the Concord Christmas Bird Count. The area encompassed by the count includes sections of Bedford.

In Frank's words:

We had a good outing for the Concord Christmas Bird Count - Bedford Sector.

Dale & Janice Landis, Barbara Centola, Rob Dobson, Andy Clerkin, and I were all able to participate. We had a total of 29 species and 509 individual birds tallied for the day. Highlights for Bedford included new all-time highs of 30 mallards (thanks to all the open water), 18 downy woodpeckers, 3 northern flickers, and 27 white-breasted nuthatches. We also added one new first-time species for the Bedford Sector - 2 swamp sparrows! The really exciting thing about this species is that it was seen in the restored wetland area behind the Pulte development (Hartwell Farms) off of Hartwell Road. As recently as last year this area was part of an old abandoned parking lot and now it is a nice-looking wetland!

Audubon Society Christmas Bird Count

The Concord Christmas Bird Count will be January 2, 2012. This event is a part of the National Audubon Society Christmas Bird Count and its survey area includes parts of southwestern Bedford.

The Concord Christmas Bird Count group is looking for field observers to go out and count birds in some of the Bedford open spaces such as Clark, Little Meadow, and the open space along the bike path between Hartwell Rd and the Concord line. In addition to the field observers, feeder watchers keep an eye on the birds that come to their feeders/yards that day.

The National Audubon Society charges $5 for each field observer. All participants under the age of 18 and feederwatchers are free.

Please contact Frank Gardner by email at
frg444@gmail.com before Christmas (if possible) to participate.

Christmas Bird Count

Volunteers from Bedford will be participating in the National Audubon Society's Christmas bird count on January 2, 2011. The Christmas bird count is an annual event that takes a census of the numbers of species and individual birds in circles of 15 miles in diameter throughout North and South America.

Several of Bedford's conservation areas are within the circle that has been registered with the National Audubon Society for Concord, MA. These conservation areas are:

• Clark
• Dellovo
• Little Meadow
• Vanderhoof
• Webber

All areas within a registered 15-mile diameter circle are eligible for bird counting. The circle registered in Concord includes many back yards in Bedford as well as some land in the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge.

Participants may go out into the field to count birds on January 2nd or they may stay at home and watch their bird feeders. There is a five dollar charge for field participants (over 19 years old) and there is no charge for feeder watchers.

From the National Audubon Society's web page about the usefulness of the Christmas bird count:

The data collected by observers over the past century allow researchers, conservation biologists, and interested individuals to study the long-term health and status of bird populations across North America. In the 1980’s CBC data were used to document the decline of wintering populations of the American Black Duck, after which conservation measures were put into effect to reduce hunting pressure on this species.

Contact the Christmas bird count leader for Bedford to join a field team or to participate as a feeder watcher. Frank Gardner is a long-time Bedford conservation land steward and is leading the Bedford participants in the count this year. Send Frank email if you would like to join the count.