Did You Know? The Audubon Christmas Bird Count began 115 years ago. The count was in response to the popular holiday activity of seeing how many birds a person could shoot in one day. Beginning on Christmas in 1900, birder Frank Chapman proposed a new tradition of counting birds rather than hunting them. Today, birds are counted by thousands of birding enthusiasts throughout the Americas. According to the Audubon Society, “Audubon and other organizations use data collected in this longest-running wildlife census to assess the health of bird populations – and to help guide conservation action.”
Franklin’s History with the Christmas Count: At the prompting of Bob Gilbert, the Franklin Bird Club applied to Audubon to be a site for the yearly count. The application included designating a circular area, 15 miles across, which was then divided among 5 teams of birders. 2012 was a practice year with CBC reports submitted to Audubon and details worked out but nothing was official.
Franklin Bird Club members have been counting ever since. On the drop downs under this page, you can check our count results for each year.
Welcome to the Franklin Bird Club 