Birds may seem like summer creatures that only come out in fair weather, but they’re still here hunting, bathing and chirping away all winter long too. To get a sense of what kind and how many, the Glen will sponsor its first official Christmas Bird Count for Yellow Springs on Saturday, Dec. 17, 8–2 p.m. The Christmas bird count is one of the longest standing citizen science efforts to try to catalogue and quantify the avian species that both live in and migrate through the different regions of the world.

This year’s official Yellow Springs count circle includes a 15-mile diameter encompassing the village, the Glen, Clifton Gorge and John Bryan Park. Last year the Glen held an unofficial Christmas count, finding 2,500 birds of 39 species in the Glen and 6,000 birds of 51 species in the count circle.

Participants can join the count by meeting at Trailside at 8 a.m. Saturday morning to plan count areas and fan out in groups to seek out the birds. The groups will meet back at Trailside at 2 p.m. for a Tally Rally to report what they found. Residents can also participate in the count on that day by picking up a tally sheet at Trailside and logging the type and number of birds sighted within the count circle. Tally sheets should be returned to the Glen on Saturday to be included in the total.

For more information, contact the Glen at 769-1902.

See the story for more on the count in this week’s YS News.