It’s December in Orange County, FL, and the Christmas Bird Count is on. For students at Zellwood Elementary and Wolf Lake Middle School, that means they set their eyes on the skies for this century-old community science initiative – with a little help from Orange Audubon Society (OAS).

Orange Audubon Education Coordinator Kathy Rigling has led the effort to involve students in the Christmas Bird Count for three years. Using Audubon grants, OAS purchased high-quality binoculars for the students to borrow during the count. Rigling created a nine-minute video for teachers to explain the community science effort to document all the birds seen or heard, providing a snapshot of bird population trends. During the Christmas Bird Count, teams across the hemisphere are organized and assigned specific areas to survey birds within 15-mile count circles in their region.

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