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CORTLAND -- Bird-watchers kept an eagle eye on their feeders to record birds during the annual four-day Great Backyard Bird Count.
The worldwide count started Friday and ends today.
Jason Lee, Mosquito Lake State Park park naturalist, led 15 people to record data at the Trumbull Agricultural Center property in Cortland.
Launched in 1998 by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Audubon Society, the count was an early online, participatory-science project to collect information on wild birds and display results in near real time. Information is submitted to birdcount.org.
Lee said that during the pandemic in 2020 participants started to observe birds from home.
"The pandemic opened up birding to many people who continue today," he said.
A minimum of 15 minutes daily is required to gather data.
North Bloomfield resident Larry Richardson said participants provide an important service.
"You are contributing information for science, which helps people better understand things happening with birds," Richardson said.
Organizers said that each February, bird lovers worldwide come together. Over the four days, people spend time in their favorite places watching and counting as many birds as they can find and reporting them to the Cornell Lab.
A group gathered at Mill Creek MetroParks' Ford Nature Center to review the itinerary for the four-day event.
"People help with the count by recording the greatest number of each bird species at one time at their feeders or in their backyards," Jeff Harvey of Youngstown, past president of the local Audubon Society, said. "They are counting the maximum number of birds of a particular type at one time."
Among local birds making the local count are cardinals, chickadees, titmouse, red-breasted nuthatch and gold finches.
The area's Audubon Society includes residents from Trumbull, Mahoning and Columbiana counties.
"This data is recorded and can be used to see any bird population change," Harvey said.
Cindy Fernback, Ford Nature Center education manager, said the center attracts varieties of birds.
"We do on occasion have bald eagles come here, but usually they stay at Lake Glacier. We see turkeys and hawks in the forest."
Jason Short, president of the local Audubon Society, started birding four years ago, and said bird-watching has made a comeback.
"It has really taken off again. More and more people are bird-watching. It is a multimillion dollar industry with people buying bird seed, bird feeders and other items," Short said.
Erika Somerville of Newton Falls is a veteran bird counter.
"I am a bird person," she said. "I always love looking for unusual birds. I enjoy sitting and watching the birds. If I can contribute to a citizen science project while I am watching, why not?" Somerville said.