a baby racoon and birdwatching (GBBC)

This baby racoon visited us this morning, enjoying the birdseed I had scattered on the ground earlier. We have seen him 2 or 3 times before and don't know if he's all alone, or just wandered away from his mom.

This weekend while watching birds, I'm doing the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC), a global counting of birds held every year in February. Anyone can participate, Feb 14 -17, 2025, just by counting and identifying the birds you see or hear... making a checklist and submitting it via an app or website (Merlin or eBird). You need to count the birds you see to the best of your ability for a minimum of 15 minutes and continue for as much time as you like. You can also do more than one checklist in a day. Yesterday, I did two at our house in the morning, one at Bennett Park, one at my mom's and another one at home in the afternoon. Read more about participating here. This is a very popular birding event. As of this writing - in the past 2 days, 100,567 checklists have been submitted globally. wow! 

Yesterday & today I have seen: Mourning Doves, White Ibis, Little Blue Heron, Red-Bellied Woodpecker, American Crow, Northern Mockingbird, Red-Winged Blackbird, Common Grackle, Northern Cardinal, Great Egret, Great Blue heron, Nanday Parakeet, Brown-headed Cowbird, Palm Warbler, Black Vulture, Osprey, Mottled Duck, Common Gallinule, Anhinga, Tricolored Heron, Red-shouldered Hawk, Fish Crow, Boat-tailed Grackle, Pine Warbler, Blue Jay and House Sparrow... A total of 798 individual birds, counted to the best of my ability and 26 species (so far). Estimates are ok. The brown headed cowbirds visit us in huge flocks. I saw an estimated 466 of them!! They fly in to the feeder area in big bunches and feed mainly on the ground, multiple times a day. 

Birdwatching has become more popular recently. I read that it can be a refuge from the digital world we live in and that watching birds is a type of mindfulness that can distract and calm your mind. No wonder I am enjoying this so much! So are many others who enjoy this... I just read that in 2023, approximately 334,000 people participated in the GBBC and counted 7,727 species of birds in 253 countries. That is a lot of birdwatching. ;0)