Your Counts Count and So Does Your Vote
September 23, 2026
by Jeff and Allison Wells
Artificial intelligence. Satellite tagging tech. Automated sound recorders. Instantaneous vocal ID. Genetic analyses. Given today’s sophisticated science tools, you might assume that old-fashioned personal bird and nature observations have become obsolete, with little but esoteric value.
But you’d be wrong!
Despite the glut of high-tech tools that help researchers capture and analyze data from the natural world, observations of birds, insects, arachnids, and other wildlife made by volunteer observers are not only relevant but crucial. Without these “community science” (previously, citizen science), many critical scientific and conservation needs would be impossible to achieve.
Given the threats of climate change and other challenges currently being addressed by the Natural Resources Council of Maine, our coalition partners, and so many other dedicated organizations and activists across Maine and the nation, you may be wondering how populations of each of the world’s 11,000 or so bird species are faring. Maybe you’re especially concerned about the roughly 300 species that occur regularly in Maine. To ensure accurate data, it’s essential that species found over vast continental ranges and that migrate thousands of miles be monitored at hundreds of thousands of locations throughout the year. Such monitoring is impossible without volunteer human observers.
As we noted in an earlier post, citing scientific research shows that North America has at least three billion fewer breeding birds today compared to the 1970s. Those analyses were based completely on data collected by volunteer birders participating in the U.S. Breeding Bird Survey, a study organized by the U.S. Geological Survey, and National Audubon’s Christmas Bird Count. These datasets are truly the only information we have to examine continental bird population trends back 50 or more years in time. In more recent decades, other volunteer-collected datasets have also become extremely available. We’ve sung the praises of eBird many time times in our blog. As you may recall, eBird is a project started more than 20 years ago through a partnership of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Audubon.
Another vital piece for understanding the natural world—and considering how humans manage or interact with it—is knowing where birds (and other creatures) occur. Even more particularly, researchers want to know what the geographic areas are that encompass their nesting grounds, migratory routes, and their non-breeding season habitats. Again, obtaining that level of information across continental and hemispheric scales is not possible except by collecting together the observations of millions of people.
And volunteer naturalists—birders in particular—have been doing just that for a very long time.
Check out these stats: More than 1.1 million birders have submitted more than two billion bird observations to eBird since it was launched in 2002. More than 80,000 people participate in the thousands of Audubon Christmas Bird Counts that take place across the Americas every winter. And about 3,000 Breeding Bird Survey routes are systematically completed in early summer across North America by volunteers who start the first of the 50 required point counts at dawn.
State by state, volunteers have been brought together to complete bird atlases that carefully document the distribution of birds. Over time, analysis of these atlases document changes to where birds occur—invaluable when determining the effects climate change, for example, is having on bird populations. Maine’s second bird atlas project covered the period from 2018-2022, and the book compiling the results is available at https://maineaudubon.org/events/maine-bird-atlas-final-presentation-online/.
Observations from volunteers have documented the arrival of birds like Red-bellied Woodpeckers and Carolina Wrens to the region. Sadly, such community science-contributed data also have shown us the disappearance of birds like nesting Bobolinks, Eastern Meadowlarks, Savannah Sparrows, and Cliff Swallows from many areas across Maine.
Birds are only one part of the big picture. The need for observations of animals, plants, and other living things is no less urgent and can be easily contributed through apps like iNaturalist (one of our favorites!).
So by all means, keep counting—but don’t stop there! One of the most significant contributions you can make FOR the future of the natural world will be through another type of count: your vote! Make yours count by voting for elected officials who have pledged or who have a track record of action protecting the environment—it’s the perfect complement to your observations and to your love of nature!
