When Juanita Hummel moved to the suburbs, she saw her mother tending to birds at their feeders, unaware that years later, she would live in the Sourland Mountain Preserve — a central New Jersey area rich with species to identify and observe.
Hummel is the president of the Pennington-based Washington Crossing Audubon Society. Before dedicating her time to bird watching, sometimes simply referred to as “birding,” she was a research scientist in the pharmaceutical industry.
With at least 40 years of the hobby behind her, Hummel and her love for conservation are a perfect match for the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC), a four-day period from Friday, February 18, through Monday, February 21, during which participants are encouraged to document any birds they see.
This year is the 25th anniversary of GBBC, a collaboration between the Audubon Society, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and Birds Canada/Oiseaux Canada. In 2021, more than 300,000 GBBC participants worldwide identified 6,436 species.
Bird watchers must count for a minimum of 15 minutes on any one of the days, or as many as they please, then submit a checklist. Each new location or day requires a new submission, with optimal “hot spots” for activity found throughout the state.
Anyone can participate by either downloading two applications, Merlin and eBird, or through Princeton Public Library’s involvement with the GBBC. As part of their initiative to make birding accessible for everyone, there will be both a Google Form online and hard copies of the bird count form to either print out or pick up from the Welcome Desk.
Joining alongside the library’s Princeton-area efforts are D&R Greenway Land Trust, Friends of Herrontown Woods, Friends of Princeton Open Space, Princeton Adult School, Sustainable Princeton, and The Watershed Institute.
Princeton Public Library is also hosting events of its own, including the Great Backyard Bird Count Watershed Reserve Walk on Saturday, February 19, at 9 a.m. and the Mountain Lakes Guided Winter Birds Walk the following day at the same time. Registration and more information can be found at princetonlibrary.org/birdcount.
Kerrie Wilcox is a coordinator for GBBC at Birds Canada, working with them for almost 20 years. She started as part of the Long Point Waterfowl and Wetlands Research Program, then moved on to her current role, which includes making sure that the GBBC reaches northern audiences.
“You don’t have to be an expert to participate,” she says, explaining that the GBBC is an easy foray into the world of citizen science. “Even if people can just count one bird and send us that information, that will really help us.”
When it comes to how to best participate as a beginner, Wilcox recommends the Merlin app. The platform asks the user questions about location, color, size, calls, and behavior to match the birds to their corresponding names. There are also recordings of songs to compare, then match the species, as well as image recognition services that can visually identify species from the snap of a cellphone camera.
Any sightings must then be recorded using eBird. For advanced or frequent birdwatchers, eBird allows users to simply report their location and the birds they saw, without sorting through potential options. All of the information will go directly into a permanent and publicly available GBBC database.
“The scientists can’t be everywhere, so we rely on the eyes of the world to send us information on the birds in their backyard so that we can answer questions about global bird populations,” Wilcox says, noting that the proximity or prevalence of a species informs researchers about the ever-changing environment.
GBBC first started in 1998 as a shared program between Cornell and the National Audubon Society, but then grew to include Birds Canada. After the success of the GBBC, eBird was created, with the event and database embracing birding on a global scale.
More details about getting started are readily available on GBBC’s website guide, birdcount.org/participate/. Groups can even bird together, with one person designated as the leader using a single checklist and eBird account for the other members of their unit.
According to Hummel, the best areas across New Jersey for the GBBC are the Sourland Mountain Preserves in Hopewell and Somerset County, Pole Farm at Mercer Meadows in Lawrence, Baldpate Mountain in Titusville, and the Institute Woods and Rogers Refuge in Princeton.
A full list of other locations can be found on the Washington Crossing Audubon Society website at washingtoncrossingaudubon.org/publications/birding-hot-spot-maps.
In terms of trends, Hummel says that across New Jersey, beetles called emerald ash borers have been killing ash trees, their infestations tearing through natural environments.
“It has serious implications for bird populations in the area, particularly the ones that need a large, contiguous forest canopy like we should have here in the Sourlands,” she says. “Birding in this area is more important than ever now so that scientists who are following these things can see the trends and see what’s actually happening as more ash trees die and fall down, and as the forest is replanted by the Sourland Conservancy and other organizations.”
Becca Rodomsky-Bish, the project leader of the GBBC at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in New York, says that watching birds in the backyard helps observers learn about the world around them. She enjoys catching her favorite species, the Evening Grosbeak, in crabapple trees against what she calls “a snowy winter backdrop day.”
“Birds are a really fun organism to help you feel connected to your surroundings and your landscape,” Rodomsky-Bish says. Evening Grosbeaks have been recorded in regions such as Monmouth and Cape May, the birds sporting a vibrant yellow with black and white markings.
For new or returning birders, Cornell Lab is hosting a Facebook webinar on Wednesday, February 16, from 2 to 3 p.m. to help prepare for the GBBC. The presentation will cover identifying and counting birds, tips, practice runs, as well as how to best use the applications. The session can be found at dl.allaboutbirds.org/gbbc22-fb-livestream.
Rodomsky-Bish adds that during the pandemic, those behind GBBC received an influx of people thanking them for the welcome distraction, using the “joy of their birds” as both an escape and a way to positively contribute.
“This is something that everybody can do safely,” Wilcox says. “You can even participate just by looking out your window.”
If Hummel goes to her window in the summertime, she might see the petite, olive-green ovenbird, a species she calls the “signature bird of the Sourlands” for its prevalence.
“You can hear them everywhere,” she says of the melodic tweeting.
With a white belly disrupted by flecks of black, this unassuming creature entranced the longtime observer, even one whose years of experience and penchant for tropical birds has taken her miles away from New Jersey.
The Great Backyard Bird Count’s ambitions are that everyone, whether a beginner from Princeton out in their garden or an expert in the sprawling fields, will have a similar enchanting experience as the winged animals flit above the trees.
The Great Backyard Bird Count, Friday through Monday, February 18 to 21. Free. More information at www.birdcount.org.
