Great Backyard Bird Count 2022

Just some of the many backyard birds you can find around Reno, courtesy of our photo contest.

It is time once again for the Great Backyard Bird Count(GBBC), a birding celebration hosted by Audubon, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Wild Birds Unlimited. The goals of the GBBC are to encourage you to go birding, especially birding in easy to reach locations, such as your backyard or city park.

This year the GBBC will be happening over President's Day Weekend, Feb 18th-21st. To participate in the GBBC simply do the following steps:

• Pick a location to go out birding (such as your backyard or a park) sometime(s) during the weekend. (*Yes, you can go birding multiple times during the GBBC)
• Go birding at each of your location(s) for at least 15 minutes and keep a birding checklist there. 
• Finally, email your checklist to us and submit it to eBird, the online community science project.

We at Lahontan Audubon Society have our own community account on eBird, which we use for community events like the GBBC. We would love you to share your GBBC sightings with us! Our screen name is lasbirdinggroup, and the link to our profile is below. At the last event, you our community saw 54 different birds species. Let's see if we can break our record this year! Click below to read our 2021 GBBC field trip report.

2021 GBBC Species Report

Lahontan Audubon's eBird account

​Do you need help with creating a bird checklist on your adventure? We have you covered. Click below to check out last year's post on how to create and keep a birding checklist.

How to keep a birding checklist

Do you not have an eBird account or need help with the software?  We can help you here as well:

• If you don't want an eBird account but wish to participate, simply email your birding  checklists to us via the "Contact Us" tab. We would love to include your sightings in our data. 
• If you need help with setting up an account with eBird, there are resources here to help you. We created an informational video about using eBird on our YouTube Channel linked below. 

Watch our "Using eBird" video

For more information about the GBBC, please check out their website, link below. The GBBC hosted an informational webinar on Feb. 16th from 11am to 12pm PST. Click the button below to watch a recording of the webinar.

Visit the GBBC Website

Watch the 2022 GBBC webinar

Do you need help finding parks to go birding at? We have you covered there as well. Our Birding By Bus map contains a big list of parks all through the Reno/Sparks metro area. These included the address to the parks, list of commonly seen birds and are compatible with the navigation apps on your smartphone. Click below to visit the map and explore.

Visit the Birding By Bus map

Photos were from our monthly contest, photographers include: Janet Busi, Jennifer Sojka, Jonathan Sokol, Judy Duffy and Kentia Kalanaki,