Birding at Ney - Ney Nature Center

We welcome birders at Ney, and have a bird display in our Education Building of preserved specimens collected by Art and Barb Straub. Trail maps can be found here if you’re visiting! In addition, we have a digital way to bird with us:

Live Feed of Bird Songs Being Heard at Ney’s Education Building

The Ney Winter Bird Count

Ney Nature Center serves as an established CBC circle, so we hold our own Ney Winter Bird Count to collect the information needed to participate. Families, enthusiastic birders, and ‘newbies’ all armed with bird guides and checklists observe their bird feeding stations or explore select areas within a 7.5 mile radius of the Ney Nature Center.

Each year, we provide information to the Christmas Bird Count (CBC), a long-standing program of the National Audubon Society with over 100 years of community science involvement. For more information on the count’s history and how the data is used today, visit this site.

We invite you, your family, and your friends to partake in this winter tradition during our 29th annual count event on Saturday, December 20th. Here are some ways you can participate:

1. You can attend our Lifelong Learner Brunch starting at 10:00am on 12/20 to hear a presentation about winter birds and the WBC, socialize with other bird enthusiasts, and join Ney staff on a group bird counting hike around the park. Pre-registration is required, click here to do so.

2. If bird watching from home is your preference, you can participate that way! Anyone living within our 7.5 mile counting radius (map linked below) is welcome to count from home and submit their data to us.

3. If you can’t make it to the brunch, but would love to venture out on a bird hike, you can visit any of the public lands within our 7.5 mile count radius (map linked below) and submit your data to us.

Find the map of our count circle, including eligible public lands here.

Click to download the tally sheet for the 2025 count.Download

You can identify more winter birds than you might think!

Instructions for conducting the count from home:

You may wish to count once or several times throughout the day, keeping in mind that winter birds typically feed after the sun rises, shortly after noon, and again from 3:00 pm to sunset. The tally sheet has four times indicated, and we encourage participants to carry out their count during those times.
If you observe birds not listed on the tally sheet, please list them. It is helpful to include photos of birds observed but not listed on the tally sheet.
Indicate the area/address in which you counted and the amount of time spent counting at the bird feeder and/or in the field.
In the final tally, please include the greatest number of species observed at one time, so as not to count a bird more than twice. See example below.
When you are finished with your final tally, please send it or bring it to Ney.

Tally Sheet	8:30 am	11:30 am	1:30 pm	3:30 pm
Blue Jay	4	7	0	3
Pheasant	0	9	0	6
Chickadee	6	2	8	0
–
Final Tally	7 Blue Jays	9 Pheasants	8 Chickadees

Instructions for counting on public lands:

The tallying procedure is the same as above, the only difference is you might not revisit the same spot twice or you may count in different places at different times.
If you count in different locations, record the places or the route you took.
If you are counting on public lands, be sure to wear blaze orange or pink as many locations are open for hunting. Count from parking lots, trails, or roadsides when possible.
Pinpointed on this map are the public lands within our count circle.

The Ney Winter Bird Count

Instructions for conducting the count from home:

Instructions for counting on public lands:

Past Reports