(Photo by Tina Phillips, Courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

Every holiday season, thousands of volunteers take part in a massive citizen science project, the Audubon Christmas Bird Count. This event, which helps Audubon to track the health of bird populations, is now in its 115th year. Again this year, starting on December 14, tens of thousands of volunteers, in thousands of locations, will explore their local areas, searching for as many birds as they can find and catalog. The invaluable resource created by all the data will be used to inform decisions, policies and research all over the country. It is a yearly tradition for many people, families and organizations, and an undeniably impressive and inspiring environmental volunteer effort.

Here is the official site for the Audubon Christmas Bird Count.

And more local stories about the Bird Count, in places as different as Montana, New Mexico, Wisconsin and the San Juan Islands