Local rehab center joins in 14th annual Backyard Bird Count

Submitted photo BIRD WATCHERS: Residents of Village Springs Nursing and Rehab Center gather Monday to tabulate their results from their participation in the 14th annual Great Backyard Bird Count last weekend. About 20 residents took time beginning Friday through Sunday to count and document different species of birds seen around the center as part of the event hosted by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.
Submitted photo BIRD WATCHERS: Residents of Village Springs Nursing and Rehab Center gather Monday to tabulate their results from their participation in the 14th annual Great Backyard Bird Count last weekend. About 20 residents took time beginning Friday through Sunday to count and document different species of birds seen around the center as part of the event hosted by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.

About 20 residents at Village Springs Nursing and Rehab in Hot Springs spent the weekend participating in the 14th annual "Backyard Bird Count," hosted by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, helping to identify bird species in the state.

"I'm always looking for different things for them to do and I try to think outside the box," Renee Bassett, activity director for the center, located at 1208 Highway 7 north, said Tuesday.

"They were all really excited to do it because it has to do with more than just our community," she said.

Beginning Friday and continuing through Sunday, the residents counted and documented different species of birds they spotted from a check list of 25, identifying 21 different ones, and a total of 217 birds over the three-day period.

On Monday, the group gathered to provide their totals which were emailed to the AGFC website being used to tabulate the results. Bassett noted their group is going to be featured on the website to recognize their participation in the event.

"The weather was great," she said, noting many went outside to watch for the birds, while others would watch through their windows. "Many have feeders on their windows," she said. "My ultimate goal is to have a bird feeder on every window."

Bassett said they have a lot of bird activity at the center because they have all different kinds of feeders, including seed, suet and finch sock feeders, which attract "a lot of different kinds of birds."

She said some residents would watch for only the suggested minimum of 15 minutes per day, but many would watch for an hour or more and "one lady sat out there and counted 51 birds so she was there awhile."

Launched in 1998 by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society, the Great Backyard Bird Count was the first online citizen-science project to collect data on wild birds and to display results in near real-time, according to the GBBC website.

Now, more than 160,000 people of all ages and walks of life worldwide join the four-day count each February to create an annual snapshot of the distribution and abundance of birds.

In 2016, participants in more than 130 countries counted 5,689 species of birds on more than 162,000 checklists.

Originally the GBBC was held in the U.S. and Canada each February to study the distribution of birds just before spring migrations ramped up in March. Scientists can combine this information with data from surveys conducted at different times of the year, the site said. In 2013, the count went global, creating snapshots of birds wherever they are in February, regardless of seasons across the hemispheres.

"Scientists and bird enthusiasts can learn a lot by knowing the locations of the birds. Bird populations are dynamic; they are constantly in flux. No single scientist or team of scientists could hope to document and understand the complex distribution and movements of so many species in such a short time," it said.

Questions that can be answered with the count include: How will the weather and climate change influence bird populations? How will the timing of birds' migrations compare with past years? How are bird diseases, such as the West Nile virus, affecting birds in different regions?

The data can also identify differences in bird diversity in cities versus suburban, rural, and natural areas, it said.

Local on 02/22/2017

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