Science and Research committee  Citizen science datasets are just incredibly powerful and long term. For the Christmas bird count and other ones, and eventually eBird as more data gets entered into the past, we're able to actually track longer and longer periods back through time to understand what's happening in the present and what's likely to be happening in the future.

Science and Research committee  Audubon manages the Christmas bird count in essentially the same way. We freely give data to, essentially, anyone who asks for it. For the same reasons we do ask for a form to be filled out so that we understand their thinking of what their project will be and how they intend on using it.

Science and Research committee  Sure. Thank you for that question. Actually, you're looking at the full-time staff for the Christmas bird count. I am the only person, actually, who is full-time staff for Audubon in terms of the Christmas bird count. My boss helps with some aspects of the IT parts of the program in terms of management of the database, especially when something goes wrong.

Science and Research committee  There are probably 40,000 to 50,000 people in the U.S. who are.... It varies from year to year how many people are actually participating in the Christmas bird count, but there are roughly 2,500 or 3,000 compilers—the ones in charge of the counts—plus 70,000 to 80,000 observers.

Science and Research committee  Thank you. That's a wonderful question. One of the really amazing things about ornithology is that a tremendous amount of the total knowledge of ornithological...or what's going on with all the birds everywhere comes from citizen science or non-professionals. There are an awful lot of ornithologists out there who do wonderful work and are also really good birdwatchers, but the great majority of the data that are collected—and certainly the vast majority of the data that come in through eBird and from most of the people who participate in the Christmas bird count—are from non-professional citizen scientists.

Science and Research committee  Thank you very much. I want to thank the committee again, on my behalf and that of the National Audubon Society, for inviting me to talk to you about the Christmas bird count. The Christmas bird count was started in 1900 by a gentleman named Frank Chapman at the American Museum of Natural History.