Montreal Christmas Bird Count - December 15

Where: Christmas Bird Counts are held within mandated 24-km wide circles. The Montreal circle is centered at the intersection of Sherbrooke Street West and Westminster Avenue in Montreal West. The following link provides a detailed map of the Montreal circle: Map of the Montreal circle.


Contact information: Sheldon Harvey and Barbara Szabo, coordinators of this year’s count, may be contacted by telephone at 514-637-2141 or by e-mail

How to get involved: You can contribute to the count in one of two ways, either as a field participant or a feeder-watcher.

Field participant: As a field participant, you will be assigned to one of several existing teams responsible for covering a designated territory within the count circle. An experienced birder leads each team and is responsible for ensuring that detailed records are kept of all species seen and counted throughout the day.

Until now, Bird Studies Canada funded its count coordination and data analysis via a mandatory participation fee. With effect 2012-2013, BSC has waived this fee and hopes to fund these activities through donations. With this in mind, we will have a donation box set up at the after-count social. We hope you will continue sustaining this critically important program.

Feeder watcher: If you maintain bird feeders at home and live within the count circle, you are invited to participate in the annual Christmas Bird Count by recording species seen at your feeders on the day of the count. Instructions on how to participate can be found by clicking on the following links:

Feeder-Watcher instructions

Feeder-watch checklist

There is no charge for being a feeder watcher participant. However, you are asked to contact one of the Christmas Bird Count coordinators in order to register your name and location.

In the event that you do have well-stocked feeders but cannot participate on the day of the count, we invite you to give us a call so that we may ask the team responsible for your sector to swing by and take a look to record whatever species may show up.

After-count social and compilation of results: All Christmas Bird Count participants are invited to attend an after-count social at the Montreal West Curling Club (17 Ainslie Avenue in Montreal West) where the day’s results will be compiled. Food will be provided free of charge and a cash bar will be available. Doors open at 4 p.m. with the compilation beginning at approximately 5:30 p.m. Come share your stories with us!

The following links provide additional information on the Christmas counts:

• Map of the Montreal Christmas Bird Count circle

•Official 2011 bird species checklist

Background information: Historical results from the North American Christmas Bird Counts provide important long-term baseline data on the population dynamics of many early winter species across the continent. You can view these results by visiting the Audubon Christmas Bird Count website at http://www.audubon.org/bird/cbc/hr/.

Local historical bird population trends are also evident in the Historical Species list 1931-2010.There you will find a listing of all species seen on Montreal CBCs since its inception. This table provides information on the first year each species was recorded, the number of years recorded, the record high count, and identifies the record year or years.

You can find more historical data on our counts by examining the following table Level of participation & species totals 1931-2009 which lists the number of participants for each year, the total number of participant hours and the total number of species recorded each year since 1931.

Sheldon Harvey and Barbara Szabo: Montreal Christmas Bird Count Coordinators
  The Christmas Bird Count is great fun plus it is also a very important citizen science project providing researchers with vital statistics about the birds in our area. There are details about the Montreal area Christmas Bird Count on the