News from the Noteworthy from the Delaware-Otsego Audubon Society
A Call for Community Conservation
On Sunday, January 4, Delaware-Otsego Audubon Society wrapped up our 57th consecutive year of participation in the National Audubon Annual Christmas Bird Count. This marks the nation’s oldest and longest-running citizen science effort dedicated to bird conservation.
DOAS began this vital work in 1969, just a year after its founding, and has since expanded to include a total of four county regions, thanks to the dedication of our coordinators: Sandy Bright for the Oneonta Region; Charlie Schiem for the Fort Plain Region; Pam Peters for the Northern Delaware County Region; and Samuel Weaver for the Butternut Valley Region. You can view our comprehensive compilation of data for the Oneonta Region, covering 1969 to 2025, at https://tinyurl.com/CBC-DOAS-Oneonta.
The Christmas Bird Count has generated more than 125 years of data, compiled by the National Audubon Society, which is crucial for identifying population trends for winter bird species across the U.S. and, now, hemispherically—including Canada, Central and South America. The CBC is just one of many essential ways our communities can directly participate in local bird conservation. Other important bird-related efforts include Climate Watch (January/February), the Great Backyard Bird Count (early February), World Migratory Bird Day (May) and more localized efforts like the DOAS Franklin Mountain Hawkwatch, which also recently wrapped up its 37th year. Hawkwatch data (1989 to 2025) can be found at https://tinyurl.com/FMHW-Annual.
Data from citizen science initiatives are combined with research throughout the hemisphere to better understand the challenges facing bird species and to implement targeted conservation actions to increase survivability. What the data tell us is startling: we have lost over 3 billion birds between 1970 and 2020. Furthermore, 389 out of 604 North American species are expected to face multiple threats due to a changing climate, such as false springs, drought, severe storms, heat waves, urbanization and habitat loss. Our eastern forest birds, waterfowl and grassland birds are all significantly impacted.
The data needs to urgently direct our actions. This requires a multi-level response, spanning from policy to personal change: from implementing conservation policy at the state and federal levels to protect habitat and fund environmental initiatives, to enacting local municipal ordinances on lighting and promoting bird-friendly landscapes, to requiring concrete action from our businesses and individual households to reduce our carbon footprint, install window protections to prevent collisions, and keep domestic cats indoors. Reducing bird mortality is our clearest avenue to increase survivability, and citizen science combined with community action can help us get there. For more information or to get involved, please contact DOAS at info@doas.us.
Susan O’Handley is the board chair for the Audubon Council of NY & CT (32 chapters), and serves as the NY Chapter representative and interim policy committee chair on the National Audubon Regional Advisory Board for NY/CT. She has served on the Delaware-Otsego Audubon Society Board since 2010. O’Handley is based in Hartwick, New York, where she operates a digital marketing agency for area businesses and non-profit organizations.
