Time to grab a pencil and binoculars and begin the Wildlife Diversity Program’s 20th annual Winter Bird Count. The tally sheet PDF is linked below. This count gives us information on the distribution of wintering birds in West Virginia. The count will again be twelve weeks long to allow us to record some early spring arrivals.

• Remember to count the highest number of each species that appears around your feeder at any one time during the entire weekend. For example, if you observe nine house finches at the feeder while you're having breakfast on Saturday, and seven are there during halftime of the game on Sunday, simply put down "9" for the weekend, do not add them.
• If you get a very large number of birds--estimate their numbers. We cannot use descriptive words such as "many" or "few."
• Some birds, such as crows and robins, may feed away from your feeders. You can count birds such as these as long as you're consistent. When a species doesn't appear, leave its box blank, don't enter a "0." Please do not substitute another day if you missed a designated day; if you're not home one weekend, simply draw a line through that row.

Tally Sheet - (PDF format, 78 KB)

(You will need Acrobat Reader to view this file)