According to Iowa Department of Natural Resources Training Specialist Anne Riordan, a recent annual holiday tradition was a huge success. Riordan and about a dozen volunteers completed the annual Christmas Bird Count for the National Audubon Society last month.

Riordan tells Raccoon Valley Radio the group identified 68 different species of birds on December 14th. While she doesn’t know exactly how many birds were counted, she knows the number is easily in the thousands. The species located included: owls, bluebirds, robins, a great blue heron, and a merlin. Riordan talks about the group she had for the count. “We had a great group of volunteers, many of whom have been helping for years and years. Some people started early morning with owling before it was light. We did a combination of walking and driving and counting.”

The area covered is a 15-mile radius between Springbrook State Park and Lake Panorama. Last year the Audubon Christmas Bird Count mobilized more than 72,000 volunteers in more than 2,500 locations across the Western Hemisphere. This count is the longest-running citizen science survey in the world.