Photo: Eugene Rothgery

Event Type: Spring Bird Count
Date: Saturday, May 9, 2020
Time: Participants set individual schedules
Location: Thorn Creek Audubon's count territory
Address: Will County and Cook County locations

You can join the National Audubon Society's Annual Spring Bird Count by volunteering with Thorn Creek Audubon group. The 2020 Spring Bird Count will be held throughout the day.

Usually teams of two or more go out to various locations for the annual Spring and Winter counts. This spring, due to COVID-19, we're asking our volunteers to cover their assigned areas individually or bird only with other members of their household.

New volunteers are welcome. We divide up our bird count area among our volunteers.  The area is a 15-mile diameter circle centered at Governor's State University in University Park, IL. Territories in that circle include Homewood, Chicago Heights, Crete, Frankfort, and as far south as Beecher-Peotone Road.

Teams count all the birds by species they find from dawn till dusk (and sometimes Owls before dawn) and report them to our Thorn Creek Audubon compiler for reporting to National Audubon Society (NAS). Totals from throughout the United States are then compiled by NAS and reported on their website and compared with previous year's results.

Or you can volunteer to receive calls from backyard feeder watchers on the same day.

If you'd like to volunteer or have questions, contact Al Thomas at thorncreekaudubon@gmail.com.