You can turn your hobby of watching the birds at your feeder into genuine science by participating in Project FeederWatch. If you can identify all the birds that visit your backyard bird buffet, you're qualified to participate in this, a citizen science project of Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, which runs every November through April. The data collected from across the United States and Canada every winter paint a picture of the abundance and distribution of bird species, and changes over time. The $18 participation fee funds data analysis, the website, and a year-end report, Winter Bird Highlights, but also pays for a starter kit for first-time participants. Does feeding birds harm them? Does it delay migration? How far has house finch eye disease spread? Are Carolina chickadees expanding their range northward? These are some of the questions Project FeederWatch is helping to answer. You can contribute to the data collection. Visit feederwatch.org for more information or to sign up.

About Bill Thompson, III