Join this “Citizen Science” project, the longest continuously running bird data in the area!

Frank Chapman and 26 other conservationists initiated the Christmas Bird Count as a way of promoting conservation by counting, rather than hunting, birds on Christmas Day of 1900. Some counts have been running every year since then and the CBC now happens in over 20 countries in the western hemisphere!  Now a long-standing program of the National Audubon Society, with over 120 years of community science involvement, it is an early-winter bird census, where thousands of volunteers across the U.S., Canada (where Audubon partners with Birds Canada), and many countries in the Western Hemisphere go out over a 24-hour period on one calendar day to count birds.

The Athol Christmas Bird Count is sponsored by the National Audubon Society and is designed to count all the species and individual birds we can find in the area in a 24-hour period.  The Athol count officially started by science teacher Robert Coyle in 1967 with a handful students in 2 vehicles covering the 15-mile diameter circle centered on the old Junior High School (where he taught) on School Street in Athol.