The Kansas Winter Bird Feeder Survey period for January 2008 is from Thursday, January 10th, through Sunday, January 10th. You may want to start your feeding birds in December or as soon as possible. This is a great project for OWLS school sites or it can be done by students and their parents at home. The school based project can be assessed through the Internet at:http://pathfinderscience.net/winterbird Citizens wanting to participate from home can access information at http://kwbs.pathfinderscience.net The Winter Bird Feeder Survey began as a cooperative effort between the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks and the Kansas Ornithological Society, to census birds at feeders throughout Kansas. The survey started in Kansas, January of 1988. During the 2002 survey the project expanded to anyone in the United States who would like to participate. Data is gathered by hundreds of volunteers, who watch their feeders and count birds on two, of four designated days, that visit their backyards or school feeders, in January of each year. The Online Winter Bird Feeder Survey is collaboration between the PathFinder Science and the Kansas Wildlife and Parks and collaborative network of students, teachers, volunteers and researchers dedicated to the study of the birds. The data collected on this project is invaluable to wildlife planners and researchers. The data and maps are also available to anyone who is just interested in the natural world. To begin, take a look at the information on bird watching. How to count the birds during the survey can be found at; http://pathfinderscience.net/ks/winterbird/cproto1.cfm Use the data form available at the site to record your birds then after the survey submit your data online at: http://pathfinderscience.net/ks/winterbird/cdata_sub.cfm All project information can be found on the site at http://pathfinderscience.net/ks/winterbird including a suggestion for a feed preference research study.Suggestions – it is really great if you are counting birds at school, to try to get a local Audubon member (perhaps a parent or retired person) to work with the student observers on their identification.This is also a great activity to have students and parents to do at home on Saturday and Sunday. If you do this then each student should enter their home address information for the feeder location.We are currently working on the maps and old data with bird survey data that goes back to 1988!
