Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) Methodology
If you wish to take part in a county-wide GBBC pooled data event, follow these steps:
1. Collect data on one of the days of the GBBC period.
2. Collect data in your yard and at any other discrete sites within your county that you have time to cover that day. A minimum of 10 sites needs to be covered in one county; several observers can pool their efforts to achieve the minimum number of sites. Discrete sites may be parks, farms, sections of birdy roads (no more than 3 miles in length, preferably 1 mile), or any site that can be covered completely in no more than 2 hours.
3. Spend at least 15 minutes, but no more than 2 hours, at each site, recording your data on a field card or some other archivable form; the period of time should be consecutively accumulated, not discontinuous segments of time; an exception may be made for sites where night work is conducted prior to or later than daylight counting (in those cases turn in one list with discontinuous times indicated on it).
4. Submit your data via the GBBC data-entry program available at this link:
5. Be sure to include your own name and the name of the site of your checklist(s) in the "Comments" section of each GBBC check-list you create at the data-entry site.
6. Send yourself a copy of each GBBC checklist, using the email service also available at the GBBC data-entry site; then forward a copy of the resulting email message to me; here is my email address: sstedman@tntech.edu
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