'Very successful year' for Yellowknife Christmas bird count

This year's Christmas bird count in Yellowknife may have had the biggest turnout ever, according to organizers, with over 25 people coming out to help gather data on the city's winter bird population.

First-time bird count participant Trent Peterson and his son Jude Peterson took on the count for the Petitot Park area, which covers most of the Frame Lake Trail. They said they decided to attend this year after seeing an article about the bird count in the news.

"We like to bird watch anyway, and we thought it would be really fun to take part and kind of help continue this on," Peterson explained.

The Christmas bird count is a tradition that has been taking place for over 120 years in North America, with over 2,000 locations in North and South America now participating.

In Yellowknife, the Christmas bird count has been going for 39 years, with Ecology North leading the event for the last 20 years. Over the course of the day, each group of participants covers one area of Yellowknife, recording the species and location of every bird they spot.

At the end of the day, they submit the data to the volunteer organizer of the event, Reid Hildebrandt, who is in change of compiling all that data and submitting it to an open-source database that researchers can use to learn about bird populations.

"It is one of the most important citizen science things that happens in North America," he explained. "This is the best way to see how Yellowknife's winter birds have been faring over the long run."

And for birders who participate, it's also a lot of fun.

Allison McCabe, an avid birder who recently moved to Yellowknife from Vancouver, said the event felt like a great chance to learn more about the bird species in her new home. 

"It's like real-life Pokemon, it's just fun to get new species and it's always really exciting," she said.

Hildebrandt said that he is hoping to crunch the data from this year's bird count later this week, but there are a few early trends he spotted. There were a lot of grouse this year, he said, and counts for some common birds like ravens and ptarmigan appear to be up compared to last year.

"It looks like it's been a very successful year, both in terms of birds seen and community involvement," he said.