By Anne Stairs

The Christmas Bird Count, initiated by Ilay Ferrier, and continued by Thomas Moore for the past 25 years, is Knowlton’s most well-known link to tracking bird populations. (see article on 2025 birds count).

The Christmas Bird Count (CBC) itself is 125 years old. It was started by American ornithologist Frank Chapman as an alternative to the traditional Christmas bird shoot. What started as 27 friends out counting birds at Christmas, is now North America’s longest running citizen science project regrouping thousands of volunteers across the continent.

Knowlton is one of more than 2,000 circles in North America, and the power of so much combined data is the strength of the CBC citizen survey. Moore cautions that you can’t interpret results in any single year as so many factors influence sightings from year to year. However the long arc of the data submitted to Bird Studies Canada and then the Audubon society can be a useful puzzle piece in our understanding of bird trends.

The Cornell University lab of Ornithology’s 2019 annual report states that 3 billion birds have been lost in North America since 1970. That represents a reduction of about one in four birds. These bird losses are a strong signal about the health of our overall environment.

While many endangered species are doing well as a result of government protection, according to Cornell’s 2019 annual report, more than 90% of the casualties come from 12 avian families including sparrows, blackbirds and finches.