Christmas Bird Count

A rich history

A hundred years ago, a popular Christmas season activity was the Christmas Side Hunt, a contest to try to shoot as many birds as you could on one day. This doesn’t seem like a very sporting activity to many of us now, and it didn’t to Frank Chapman, either. In 1900, he organized a Christmas Bird Census in protest against and as a substitute for the Side Hunt. The idea caught on, spread, and grew until today there are Christmas Bird Counts all over North, Central and South America.

Now under the supervision of the National Audubon Society, the counts seldom take place on Christmas Day any more, but all occur between mid-December and early January. (Although it’s traditionally called the “Christmas” Bird Count, there is no connection with Christmas or any other religious holiday.) Each count aims to count the birds within a fixed circle fifteen miles across, so that data can be compared from year to year. In 120 years, the number of separate count circles has grown from 25 to over 2600. Chapman could never have imagined that his Christmas Bird Census that was organized for the love of birds would provide valuable scientific information about the health and distribution of wild bird populations.

Our local Palos Verdes Christmas Bird Count started in 1966. Our count circle is centered approximately on the intersection of Palos Verdes Drive North and Palos Verdes Drive East, and extends from Alondra Park in the north to the Catalina Channel in the south, and from Santa Monica Bay in the west to the Los Angeles River in the east.

2023 CBC Results

In keeping with longtime tradition, our chapter participated in the nationwide Christmas Bird Count this past December 2023 – a critical scientific resource for the monitoring of our bird populations.

In total, there were 168 species observed by our volunteers on count day! For more details, click the button below to download our count summary: click here.