In Northwest Indiana, on December 23, 2023, the Indiana Dunes National Park invites Region residents to get outside and have fun helping with the Christmas Bird Count and make an important contribution to conservation. Now a long-standing program of the National Audubon Society, with 124 years of community science involvement, this count is an early-winter bird census, where thousands of volunteers across the U.S. and Canada go out over a 24-hour period to count birds.
Indiana Dunes National Park will facilitate this count in the “INDW” birding circle. Places in the national park included in the circle area are Miller Woods, West Beach, Portage Lakefront and Riverwalk and Tolleston Dunes. Cities include portions of Gary, Hobart, Portage, Lake Station, Burns Harbor, Ogden Dunes and Merrillville. For the exact count circle area, go to: http://birds.audubon.org/christmas-bird-count . Volunteer birders will be assigned a location within the circle for that day, or they can do counts at their home bird feeders.
All counters must sign up beforehand to be placed on the counters list, assigned an area to count and receive the proper count forms for data collecting. Contact park ranger Christine Gerlach to register or learn more. Sign-up deadline is December 21, 2023.
