SPECIAL REPORT:
THE EARLY HISTORY OF OUR CHAPTER

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President's Week Special Children's Programs
at Garvies Point Museum, February 17 - 20
For details, call 516-571-8010 or www.garviespointmuseum.com

Congress approves Long Island Sound funding
As the debate on the federal budget ended, Congress and the President agreed to spend $7 million for protecting and restoring Long Island Sound, more than double the funding received last year.

THE GREAT BACKYARD BIRD COUNT
February 12- 15

Bird and nature fans are invited to join tens of thousands of everyday bird watchers for the 13th annual Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC).

A joint project of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society, this free event is for families, students, and people of all ages to discover the wonders of nature in backyards, schoolyards, and local parks, and at the same time, make an important contribution to conservation. Participants count birds and reported sightings online at www.birdcount.org. Families, teachers, children and all those who take part in the GBBC get a chance to improve their observations kills, enjoy nature, and have a great time counting.

Anyone can take part, from novice to expert, by counting birds for as little as 15 minutes on one or more days of the event and reporting their sightings online at www.birdcount.org. Participants can also explore what birds others are finding in their backyards – whether in their own neighborhood or thousands of miles away. Additional resources include tips to help identify birds, a photo gallery, and special materials for educators.

The data helps researchers understand bird population trends, information that is critical for effective conservation. This effort enables everyone to see what would otherwise be impossible: a comprehensive picture of where birds are in late winter and how the numbers and distribution compare with previous years. In 2009, participants submitted more than 93,000 checklists, observed over 111 million birds of 613 species. The GBBC has become a vital link in the arsenal of continent-wide bird monitoring projects. The GBBC has documented the fine-grained details of late winter bird distributions better than any project in history, including some truly striking changes over the past decade.

Make plans to join us this year as part of the longest running citizen science program in the United States. Since its beginning in 1900 with 25 areas, the count has expanded to include all 50 states, every Canadian province, parts of Central and South America, Bermuda, the West Indies, and Pacific Islands.
The data collected by observers for the past century allow researchers, conservation biologists, and other interested individuals to study the long-term health and status of bird populations across North America. When combined with other surveys it provides a picture of how the continent’s bird populations have changed in time and space over the last hundred years.