Hot Springs National Park, in partnership with chapters of the National Audubon Society, Lake Catherine State Park, and the City of Hot Springs, will host its Christmas Bird Count on Sunday, December 29.

Nathan Charlton, the park's natural resource program manager, is recruiting birders and other volunteers to participate in the event, including field team members and bird feeder watchers of all birding skill levels. If you are a bird feeder owner without birding expertise, please consider permitting a field team to count the birds at your feeder on December 29.

The National Audubon Society has been coordinating Christmas Bird Counts across the country for more than 100 hundred years, and the Hot Springs National Park circle will add to that significant birding data again this year as teams of birders and other volunteers head out to identify and count birds in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and the surrounding area.

According to Audubon, the park’s landscape "consists of rugged mountain slopes, creeks, valleys, and old-growth forests that support a rich ecosystem of animal and plant life, such as mosses, liverworts, grasses, and shrubs. Many bird species can be found in Hot Springs, including the Great Blue Heron, Golden Eagle, Red-tailed Hawk, American Kestrel, Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Greater Roadrunner, and Great Horned Owl, as well as numerous woodpeckers, warblers, and vireos."

The goal of the count is to record the types and number of birds within a circle that is 15 miles in diameter, over the course of a day. The Hot Springs National Park circle includes the park, the City of Hot Springs, the entirety of Lake Hamilton, and Lake Catherine State Park.

Prior year’s counts have included nearly 6,000 birds from 108 species, once earning the count a tie for the highest species diversity in the state. Having that sort of information for thousands of circles across the nation gives citizen science the spotlight in studies about bird populations, migration patterns, and even climate change impacts.

Interested parties should contact Nathan Charlton at 501-620-6751 or Nathan_charlton@nps.gov. Registration for the event is free and due by December 12.