Every December, thousands of volunteers across North America head outdoors to count birds — helping scientists understand how our feathered neighbors are doing. The Audubon Christmas Bird Count (CBC) isn’t just a fun birding day — it’s the oldest and largest citizen science project in the world, and it depends entirely on volunteers like you.
Eastside Audubon is now accepting applications for two funding opportunities supporting local conservation and education efforts.
The Puget Sound Seabird Survey is looking for birders in King County to join this established Community Science program.
In the quiet of the woods the bubbling song of the Ruby-crowned Kinglet erupted, and the high trill of the Brown Creeper signaled its presence. The hormonal drive to breed had birds singing regardless of the weather.
In 2024, the monthly Marymoor habitat restoration workparty had 237 volunteers. We planted 131 native shrubs and trees, including bigleaf maples, Garry oaks, Oregon grapes, Nootka roses, and Western red cedars. We spread almost 70 cubic yards of mulch and removed over 50 cubic yards of invasive species like common hawthorn, Himalayan blackberry, and reed canary grass.
Leah Turner and Mick Thompson were named co-winners of the Eastside Audubon Photo of the Month award for September. Leah won for her shots of elusive Common Loons at Semiahmoo Spit, south of Vancouver, B.C., while Mick earned recognition for his photos of long-eared owls taken at Boundary Bay in British Columbia.
Each year, the Western Field Ornithologists (WFO) holds a conference in the western United States, bringing together birders and scientists from all over western North America.
Registration for the 2024 Eastside Audubon Christmas Bird Count will be open on November 4! The CBC is the world’s largest and longest-running community science data collection project. The 2024-2025 count period from December 14 to January 5 marks the 125th CBC sponsored by the National Audubon Society. It will be Eastside Audubon’s 41st CBC.
We are recruiting volunteers to join CBC teams or for feeder-watching at home. Go to the CBC page become a feeder watcher, join a field team, and attend the CBC dinner. We will have 15 field teams this year.
Eastside Audubon’s CBC Count Circle. 25-mile diameter centered on Beaver Lake in Sammamish.
The EAS CBC is an all-volunteer project, and we have three ways for you to participate.
Our chapter has 15 teams being led by experienced birders who are accepting 3-5 volunteer participants.
We also support at-home feeder watchers who count birds at their home feeder or other location within the 25-mile diameter circle centered on Beaver Lake in Sammamish.
View our CBC Count Circle here and see if your address falls inside the circle (top left for search field).
Everyone, whether birding or not, is invited to join the CBC dinner after the count.
Whether you participate by joining a field team, watching your feeder at home, or sharing in the experience of the day at the dinner, you can register for the event you want to join at the CBC page. Registration closes on December 10th. If you are interested after that date, please email Andy McCormick at amccormick@eastsideaudubon.org as we may still be able to get you on a team.
A stiff breeze was blowing the already high sea water up onto the boardwalk at Redondo Beach when we arrived. My colleagues and I are a survey team for the monthly Puget Sound Seabird Survey. With the wind blowing we wasted no time setting up our spotting scope for the 30-minute survey period. We were there to count wintering seabirds.
