History of the Count

The Christmas Bird Count began over a century ago when 27 conservationists in 25 localities, led by scientist Frank Chapman, changed the course of ornithological history.  On Christmas Day 1900, the small group of conservationists posed an alternative to the “side hunt,” a Christmas day activity in which teams competed to see who could shoot the most birds and small mammals.  Instead, Chapman proposed to identify, count, and record all the birds they saw, founding what is now considered to be the most significant citizen-based conservation effort and a more than century-old institution.