Project FeederWatch

[lauerz]

Dear Oxana,

Project FeederWatch just completed its 25th season with nearly 17,000 participants -- our biggest year yet! We hope you will renew now for 2012-13 to ensure that the next season will be even more successful.

Data are still coming in and preliminary results show that FeederWatchers collectively reported more than 6 million birds last winter. Our team is busy analyzing the data and detailed results will be published in next fall’s Winter Bird Highlights.

Some interesting findings we’ve discovered so far include:
Baltimore Orioles wintered to the north of the typical winter range likely due to the mild winter.
Because of a shortage of their favorite rodents, Snowy Owls moved south in search of food and showed up at a few participant feeders.
The warm winter and lack of snow across much of North America likely meant that fewer birds were visiting your feeders – we’re analyzing the data now to better understand the influence of weather on your observations.
The more years you participate, the more valuable your counts become. That's why we're asking you to go ahead and renew your participation for next winter. Renew your support today so that we can continue to track and understand winter bird populations in North America.
 
On behalf of the entire Project FeederWatch team, thank you for taking part in FeederWatch last winter. Without your observations and financial support FeederWatch would not be possible.

Sincerely,
David Bonter
Assistant Director, Citizen Science
Project FeederWatch is a joint project of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Bird Studies Canada.