It's that time of year for Project FeederWatch 2025-26, which began Nov. 1 and runs until April 30. Don't worry if you haven't started counting yet. All counts are important.

FeederWatch is a simple, fun citizen-science project of counting the birds that visit your yard and feeders. Yet it is also one of the most powerful tools that bird scientists have to understand what is happening with all the birds in North America. 

Left: This Dark-Eyed Junco hopes he gets counted

Southern California seems made for FeederWatch's winter counts. We can watch our feeders without freezing in the process, and it gets us out of our houses for an hour or two, even if the sun isn't shining. But, if you would rather count from indoors, through a window, that's OK too.

Best of all, , Project FeederWatch now is even easier with the FeederWatch app for your phone.

Here's how to do it:

Sign Up – Join today! Project Feederwatch will send you some materials, if you wish, or you can use the FeederWatch app. Either way, you don't have to wait for materials. You can begin counting right away.

Select Your Count Site – Choose a portion of your yard that is easy to monitor, preferably an area that is visible from one vantage point. Even if you don’t provide feeders, you can still count birds for FeederWatch.

Choose Your Count Days – Select two consecutive days as often as once a week. FeederWatch recommends that you leave at least five days when you do not count between each of your two-day counts. Counting less often is fine. Even if you count only once all season, your data are valuable.

          Right: A Bewick's Wren is thrilled to find a cylinder feeder

How To Count – Watch your count site as much or as little as you want during each two-day count. For every species you can identify, record the maximum number of individuals visible simultaneously during your two-day count. Keep one running tally across both days. This way you won’t count the same bird twice. At the end of the two days, report the maximum number of each species that you saw simultaneously.

What To Count – Count all birds you see in your count site during the day that are attracted to resources that you provide, even if they don’t visit feeders, but ignore birds that simply fly over your count site.

Optional Additional Data – You can record and submit these with your bird counts: 1) mammals (squirrels, raccoons, mice, deer) that you see in your count site, 2) sick birds and bird mortality, and 3) behavioral interactions and predation events (hawk attacks).

Report Your Counts – Submit counts through the Your Data section of our website or the FeederWatch mobile app.

All Counts Are Important

FeederWatch participants sometimes stop counting their birds because they believe that their counts are not important. Sometimes you see the same birds every week, or very few or no birds. Keep counting! That data is just as important or maybe more important than any unusual or rare birds you see.
Most of the time you will see low numbers of “predictable” birds. Don't worry. These counts are the heart of FeederWatch. Focusing on the “exciting” visitors would provide a biased view of bird populations. Remember, it’s your everyday observations of common birds that are critical for monitoring bird populations.