Sketching the Christmas Bird Count

IMAGE: Diving trumpeter swans, by Debby Kaspari


Via a friend of a friend, I came across this utterly charming, illustrated account of one birder’s participation in this year’s 110th annual Christmas Bird Count. First established by conservationists as a way of subverting the holiday tradition of hunting on or around Christmas, the count sees thousands of citizen-scientists swarming out into the fields, tallying birds. This year at least 10,433,200 birds were counted (reports are still coming in).