“It allows us to see where birds are expanding their ranges and where they're declining. (For example,) in the year after the West Nile virus was first discovered, we did see populations of crows decreasing in certain areas.”
“Sometimes people think the rare birds are most interesting, but that's not true. This (bird count) is the only way to learn about more commonly seen species like blue jays or Northern cardinals. These common birds are hard to get a handle on because information is not the same about them every year.”
“If most people are just looking in their back yards, they're probably going to record a narrower subset of species than if they're going out into nearby reserves or parks, where there can be so much variety.”
