"Bird feeding has become an extremely popular winter activity in our region. It's estimated that 40% of the residents of New England feed and closely watch wildlife.

Mass Audubon and its partners have enlisted enthusiastic feeder watchers of all ages to track trends in abundance of winter feeder bird species for more than 40 years.

Observations from the bird watching public contribute to a growing database that can provide early warning signs on changes in abundance of bird species that visit feeders.

For example, feeder watching in Massachusetts has helped document the decline of House Finch as a result of conjunctivitis, and the northward expansion of Northern Cardinal, Tufted Titmouse, and Carolina Wren in response to warmer winters.

And, it's fun! We especially appreciate reading the many comments submitted by participants as they can help us interpret results (e.g., "Feeder birds down this year" or "where are all my redpolls?"). The wildlife photos that are often sent in with Focus on Feeders observations are great, too!"

Focus on Feeders

Counting the birds is pretty fun and helps to pass the time on a cold boring winter weekend. Way more fun than dealing with this weekend's hardware failures - the new digital box from Comcast doesn't work and the power supply in my desktop died (using the laptop to post this). Ugh.

I also did the Focus on Feeders this weekend. Mostly the usual birds although some of the numbers were higher. And the turkeys were conspicuously absent. I guess they were on their periodic walkabout where they go off for a few days to a week checking out the neighborhood.

The first significant wave of Red-winged Blackbirds arrived on Saturday! Twenty-one males prancing around waiting for the females to show up.

Claire

Claire