MINNESOTA CHRISTMAS BIRD COUNT HISTORY The first known, published Minnesota Christmas Bird Count was conducted on Christmas Day 1905. Two censuses were taken that year; one in Minneapolis, the other in Red Wing. The Minneapolis count was conducted by the Kenwood Bird Club, and recorded eight species, while the Red Wing Count - conducted by Charles Borgen and Nels Phillips - recorded seven. That was just the beginning. Since then, documented records of a Christmas Bird Count exist for Minnesota for every subsequent year.  In Minnesota, thousands of participants have logged nearly 77,000 total hours, traveling approximately 548,000 miles by car, foot, ski, bike, snowmobile, or other method to count birds on one of the reported 2,119 individual Christmas Bird Count census efforts that have been conducted in the in the state since 1905 in temperatures ranging from -42  to +60 degrees F. Last season the Minnesota CBC effort celebrated its 100th Anniversary by adding another species to the composite list of Christmas Bird Census species, which currently stands at 201 full species observed on Count Day. Of these species well over 8,503,547 individual birds have been tallied. (Not including years in which House Sparrow, Rock Pigeon, and European Starling were not counted.				MAIN PAGE Calendar CBC History Location Map CBC DATA Needs Quality Graphing Summaries Spreadsheets Composites REFERENCES Maps Indexes Annual Reports COMPILERS Event Promotion Tally Sheets Data Reporting Rare Bird reporting Starting a New CBC Audubon CBC Site
You're invited to join in this great birding tradition!
A very special THANK YOU to all Minnesota CBC volunteers!!! Volunteers MAKE IT HAPPEN!!!