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Everyone interested is welcome to join in, even if all you can do is sit at home and count the birds coming to your feeder!
Prior to the turn of the 20th century, hunters engaged in a holiday tradition known as the Christmas "Side Hunt."
They would choose sides and go afield with their guns—whoever brought in the biggest pile of feathered and furred quarry won.
Conservation was in its beginning stages in that era, and many observers and scientists were becoming concerned about declining bird populations.
Beginning on Christmas Day 1900, ornithologist Frank M. Chapman, an early officer in the then-nascent Audubon Society, proposed a new holiday tradition—a "Christmas Bird Census" that would count birds during the holidays rather than hunt them.
Local birders will gather at the Badger's Den, S6551 Main Street, Bonners Ferry, right when they open at 6 a.m. for a no-host breakfast and to get everyone organized, and then, after a day of counting Boundary County birds, will meet in the back room at the Chic-N-Chop, S6421 Main Street, Bonners Ferry, at 3:30 p.m. for hot cocoa and the end of the day tally.
Everyone interested in taking part is welcome! To sign up or to find out more, call or text Roger at (208) 818-0139, or email bfbirdcount@gmail.com.
To learn more about the annual tradition, click here.