Welcome to the Christmas Bird Count!

Welcome to Pasadena Audubon's Christmas Bird Count! If you're helping with the count (affectionately known as the CBC by veteran counters), take pride in the fact that you're part of one of the longest running citizen science projects in history. For the 124th consecutive year, birders all around the world are heading out to record all of the birds they can find in a specific area. Data from Christmas Bird Counts have been a priceless resource to everyone from casual birders to government agencies to scientific researchers.

Here in Pasadena we have an impressive CBC streak going - this is the 78th consecutive year for Pasadena Audubon's Christmas Bird Count!

PAS CBC area
Let's find every bird in this area!

Our 2023 CBC takes place on Saturday, December 16th. We welcome birders of all abilities! It's fun! It's important! It's science! And, just in case you missed it the first time, it's fun!

Join us via Zoom on Wednesday, December 13th at 7:30 PM for our organizational meeting. (If you miss the meeting but still want to help out with the count, email Jon Fisher and he'll assign you to a count team.

Then, after the count, join us at our traditional Bird Count Dinner Saturday evening, December 16th, from 6 to 8 pm at the Eaton Canyon Nature Center. You'll hear about what was seen and what was not and enjoy the company of other Pasadena Audubon birders over a delicious meal. Tickets for the dinner are available here.

Details about this year's Pasadena Audubon Christmas Bird Count

Count Day is from 12:01 AM to 11:59 PM on December 16, 2023. We will count all individual birds detected on that day.

Count Week runs 12:01 AM on December 13 to 11:59 PM on December 19. Any additional species detected during that period, but not on Count Day, will be noted in the summary report for the count.

The count assignments for 2023 are listed in this spreadsheet...

With 177 square miles in our count area, and only a few dozen participants each year, we need your help! If you would like to count birds at one of the unassigned areas in the spreadsheet, please contact Jon Fisher. There are other ways to join the count, too. The "Count Group Opportunities" column in the spreadsheet shows which count areas are covered by a team and welcoming additional participants. You may have a place you would like to count birds that's in the count area, but not on our list; please contact Jon Fisher to let us know your plans. Or, maybe you'd like to do a feeder watch and count birds visiting your neighborhood. We're very happy to have those counts also, and please see below for some guidelines.

To find out if your proposed count location is in our count area, visit https://gis.audubon.org/christmasbirdcount. Zoom in to California and then the Pasadena area to find the Pasadena-San Gabriel Valley count circle.

If you'd like to take part in the Christmas Bird Count at your own feeder, check out these guidelines from PAS president Luke Tiller.

Counting birds for CBC is essentially the same as making a list of birds seen during casual birding. However, to maximize your contribution to CBC, please review these guidelines in advance.

Learn more about the history and science of the Christmas Bird Count at audubon.com.

For any questions about the Pasadena-San Gabriel Valley CBC itself, please contact count coordinator Jon Fisher at JonF60@hotmail.com and/or PAS field trip chair Darren Dowell at dowell.darren@yahoo.com.

For questions about the CBC dinner on the evening of Dec. 16, please contact Lois Brunet at lois.pas@gmail.com.