Orange Audubon Society Brings the Christmas Bird Count to Elementary and Middle School Students

It’s December in Orange County, FL, and the Christmas Fowl Depend is on. For college students at Zellwood Elementary and Wolf Lake Center College, meaning they set their eyes on the skies for this century-old group science initiative – with a little bit assist from Orange Audubon Society (OAS).

Orange Audubon Training Coordinator Kathy Rigling has led the hassle to contain college students within the Christmas Fowl Depend for 3 years. Utilizing Audubon grants, OAS bought high-quality binoculars for the scholars to borrow through the depend. Rigling created a nine-minute video for lecturers to elucidate the group science effort to doc all of the birds seen or heard, offering a snapshot of hen inhabitants tendencies. Throughout the Christmas Fowl Depend, groups throughout the hemisphere are organized and assigned particular areas to survey birds inside 15-mile depend circles of their area.

College students, after all, have to suit the depend inside their class schedules, so every collaborating class allotted round 45 minutes to vary throughout campus counting birds and species. Rigling and volunteers write down the birds and switch sightings into an eBird checklist to report again to the scholars and the Christmas Fowl Depend coordinators. Utilizing further grant funding, Orange Audubon continues to work with collaborating colleges to reinforce campus hen habitat so college students in future years can discover even extra species.

Assume age retains the youngest youngsters from collaborating? Assume once more! “The kindergarten and first grade college students did a easy tally sheet with hen colours and never precise species, however they had been in a position to get the concept of what we had been doing,” explains Rigling.

2025-2026 Highlights

Throughout each colleges, college students recorded 40 hen species. They began at Zellwood with a beautiful Baltimore Oriole in a pine tree. Moreover, “the elementary college students had been fascinated with the Palm Warblers that had been comparatively simple to see foraging on the bottom. They had been excited to listen to how far these tiny warblers migrate every year,” says Rigling.

Over on the center college, college students celebrated once they noticed three American White Pelicans flying comparatively low over their campus. Additionally they recorded a blended flock of Black-and-white Warblers, Tufted Titmice, Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, and a Blue-headed Vireo.

Total, 37 courses participated this 12 months, starting from pre-Ok by way of eighth grade.

“I’ve visited Zellwood a number of occasions and final 12 months after the Christmas Fowl Depend so many college students got here as much as me and had been excited to share that they keep in mind going out and counting the birds,” Rigling provides. “It makes an actual influence on them.”

Audubon Florida’s Chapters Conservation Supervisor Kristen Kosik agrees: “It is so vital to point out college students of all ages that they’ll straight contribute to science and conservation. Collaborating in a Christmas Fowl Depend is an excellent option to jumpstart their birding and science adventures!”