A yellow-bellied sapsucker climbs the trunk of a ponderosa pine/NPS, Patrick Myers

Birders and nature enthusiasts in Colorado's San Luis Valley will join birders across the Western Hemisphere to participate in Audubon's longest-running wintertime tradition, the annual Christmas Bird Count, held at Great Sand Dunes National Park on December 23. Birders of all skill levels are invited and encouraged to participate.

To participate in the bird count at Great Sand Dunes, you must register with the park and be signed up as park volunteers. Contact the visitor center at 719-378-6395 between 9 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. daily to register. Participants who are registered as park volunteers will receive an entrance fee waiver for the day of the bird count. Volunteers must arrive at the park by 7:45 a.m. on December 23 to complete volunteer paperwork, review safety guidelines, and receive a map of assigned area, and instructions for returning count results. Those who are registered will receive specific instructions on which building in the park to meet at on December 23r For more information on the bird count, please direct inquiries, and questions to Dewane Mosher, [email protected].

The longest running citizen science survey in the world, Audubon’s annual Christmas Bird Count takes place nationwide in late December each year. Tens of thousands of volunteers throughout North America brave winter weather to add a new layer to over a century of data. 

The Christmas Bird Count began over a century ago when 27 conservationists in 25 localities changed the course of ornithological history. On Christmas Day in 1900, the small group posed an alternative to the “side hunt,” a Christmas Day activity in which teams competed to see who could shoot the most birds and small mammals. Instead, it was proposed that they identify, count, and record all the birds they saw, founding what is now considered to be the world's most significant citizen-based conservation effort – and a more than century-old institution.

The CBC is vital in monitoring the status of resident and migratory birds across the Western Hemisphere, and the data, which are 100 percent volunteer generated, have become a crucial part of the federal government’s natural history monitoring database.