National Bird-Feeding Month by Jeff Rugg on Creators.com

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Let's all thank the calendar makers that February is so short. In just a few weeks, winter will be over. Most birds will be happy it is over, too. The typical sparrow or cardinal that comes to a backyard feeder weighs about as much as a quarter. They spend virtually every waking moment looking for food (just like teenagers) and may consume 15 percent of their body weight on a cold winter's night trying to stay warm.

February is "National Bird-Feeding Month" as noted by the National Bird-Feeding Society. If you are new to bird feeding or just want to learn more about feeding birds, you can go to the society's website at www.birdfeeding.org for more information. You will find several educational pamphlets to improve your wild bird-feeding experience, including a list of the top 10 tips to a better bird- feeding experience, bird food preference chart, bird feeder preference chart, brochures on keeping birds safe as well as a bird identification sheet.

Bird feeders filled with seeds will help some birds make it through the coldest nights. In order to find out an approximate number of the birds that have survived over the winter — and before many migrant birds start arriving from the tropics — the Cornell Lab of Ornithology operates the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC). This year it will take place from Feb. 12 to Feb. 15, and you can do it from the comfort of your living room. It is an annual four-day period when bird- watchers create a snapshot of where the birds are located across the continent. Anyone can be a bird-watcher for those four days. A "backyard" can be anywhere you happen to be: a schoolyard, a local park, a balcony of a high-rise apartment or a wildlife refuge.

Doing the count is easy, all you do is count the birds you see at any location.

The highest number of each species seen on any of the days is recorded. Then you go to www.birdcount.org to record your list. There is a photo contest for those interested.

The GBBC helps everyone prepare for their trip to the backyard, whether they choose to watch birds only around their home or make the effort to see which birds are using public lands. The website is full of many tips, including information on bird feeding, how to use binoculars, how to make your yard bird-friendly and how to identify birds, especially those tricky, similar-looking species. There are even tips on how to be a bird-friendly family.

The results of each survey are displayed on a variety of maps. You can easily see the distribution pattern of any bird species. You can also observe the bird's mapped distribution changes over the years. You can compare your sightings to everyone else in your state.

Every year, more people do the count and some do more than one count. I do a backyard count as well as a count in a 2-mile long section of river near my home. Last year, more than 94,000 reports were sent, covering over 11.5 million birds of 620 species.

Make sure the birds from your community are well-represented in the count. It doesn't matter whether you report the five species coming to your backyard feeder or the 75 species you see during a day's outing to a wildlife refuge.

This event was developed and managed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society, with sponsorship from Wild Birds Unlimited store owners.

E-mail questions to Jeff Rugg, University of Illinois Extension at jrugg@illinois.edu. To find out more about Jeff Rugg and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.