In the 1800s, Christmas was a popular time for bird shooting contests. But an early officer of the Audubon Society pushed to change those annual bird kills to an annual bird count. Now, from mid-December through January 5th, tens of thousands of citizen scientists conduct Christmas bird counts nationwide. In order to bring you the experience of the annual event, Shelley Schlender joined a counting team in Boulder last year. She files this report, just in time for some of this year's counts, which are now coming in.
