New Hampshire Audubon’s Backyard Winter Bird Survey is more than just a head count of what you spy from your kitchen window.
It’s a way to be part of the essential record keeping that tracks bird populations and their environmental pressures — including climate shifts, food sources and migration cycles.
On Saturday and Sunday , the annual count will give biologists a two-day, point-in-time tally that will give them a clearer picture of what’s going on in the state’s bird world, including bird feeder regulars such as chickadees, cardinals, tufted titmice, blue jays, goldfinches and cardinals.
”They’re all year-round birds and anyone can do this as long as they can report the ones they can identify,” said Becky Suomala, a naturalist with NH Audubon. “If you’re not sure, don’t guess. Just send us a picture so we can identify it.”
Suomala, a birder for decades, says participants — roughly 1,500 to 1,700 statewide — report the largest number of each type of bird that they see at one time. It’s not a cumulative count, because spotters usually see the same bird more than once.
Early morning, starting with first light, is the optimum time for bird counting, followed by mid-morning, Suomala said. Stand at a window where you can see a bird feeder. Stock your feeder the night before so you don’t disturb the birds when they’re most active. A little bit of snow the night before usually translates to more birds at the feeder the next day.
Sunflowers seeds are a big draw, but the guiding principle is the wider the variety of food you put out, the greater the variety of birds you’ll attract.
The count requires only as much time as you have, Suomala said. If you’re heading to work, keep track of the time and what you see in those 10 minutes.
”We ask people to report whether they have birds or not,” Suomala said. “If they report only in years they have birds, we don’t see the decline.” The count gives biologists a view of what’s happening statewide “that we could never get with just a biologist going out.”
Over time, New Hampshire’s bird population has changed to include more cardinals, tufted titmice, doves and mocking birds — species previously found down south. Carolina wrens and red-bellied woodpeckers are becoming more numerous, though they’re still rare north of the White Mountains, she said.
The pine siskin, a small, brown bird with streaks, is now seen in large numbers every second or third year, when their food is scarce in Canadian forests.
Evening grosbeaks are increasing with spruce budworm outbreaks up north.
Three years ago, NH Audubon’s “State of the Birds” reported that roughly half of New Hampshire’s species are declining, while the other half are increasing or stable, said Pam Hunt, the staff biologist who authored the report.
In the past 50 years, New Hampshire’s experienced a net loss in birds, which parallels findings in Canada and elsewhere in the U.S. Three million birds are estimated to have been lost since the 1970s, because of habitat loss — “the overriding cause for decline for critters everywhere,” Hunt said. Pesticides and pollution continue to have a role in the fall off, though to what extent is not known.
The populations can’t afford mortality accelerators such as predation by cats, death by cars or higher-altitude hazards including wind turbines, naturalists say.
“The ones that are declining are declining more dramatically than the ones that are increasing,” Hunt said.
“Birds that inhabit areas where people live tend to do well, she said. Cardinals and titmice are on the upswing. “They weren’t even here in the 1960s.”
Some declines remain mysteries. For instance, there are half as many white throated sparrows in New Hampshire as there were 50 years ago, and no one really knows why. Counting becomes tricky for birds such as these that aren’t big, bright or charismatic, Hunt said.
Year-to-year counts show local conditions but if you look at the long term trend, there may be no obvious difference, said Hunt. The evening grosbeak, formerly abundant, disappeared for years then started to return as part of a 30- to 40-year population cycle, Hunt said.
People are always saying, ‘Back in the day these things were everywhere.’ It’s not even a trend, it’s a cycle, Hunt said. “We can’t get our brains around that when we’re looking out the window in winter.”
“And sometimes what we see in the winter is not what we see in the summer,” she said.
The NH Winter Bird Survey looks at how the population is distributed statewide at one time. “It really just gets people engaged in collecting data and learning things,” Hunt said — and becomes a piece of a larger picture and perhaps a pastime, too.
To receive a reporting form and instructions, email your name and address to bwbs@nhaudubon.org or call 603-224-9909. For more information about the survey, go to https://nhbirdrecords.org/backyard-winter-bird-survey.
