Christmas Bird Count

The National Audubon Society Christmas Bird Count (CBC) is an early-winter survey of birds. Although counts occur in Central and South America, most CBCs occur in North America. The sample area for a count is a circle that is 15 miles in diameter, and varying numbers of volunteers count all birds they see in the circle during a single day, which is within 2 weeks of December 25th.

Although this analysis only considers the interval 1959 - 1988, the CBC was begun in 1900. The number of circles and participants has changed dramatically since the early years. Approximately 1,500 circles were surveyed in 1986-1987.

Each year, American Birds publishes a summary of the previous years count and notes interesting features of the counts and summarizes birds, effort, and volunteers for each circle.

You can learn more about CBC by using the links at the left.

Click on a link below to find out about that particular state or province’s CBC.

United States

Canada