Join the Chenango Bird Club for their monthly meeting at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, December 14 at Rogers Environmental Education Center. The meeting will finalize plans for the 2022 Sherburne Christmas Bird Count, to be held on Saturday, December 17. (Photo by Dustin Genter of 5th Dimension Photography)

SHERBURNE — The Chenango Bird Club will be meeting Wednesday, December 14 at 6:30 p.m. at the Rogers Environmental Education Center in Sherburne. The Club’s December 14 meeting will finalize plans for the 2022 Sherburne Christmas Bird Count to be held on Saturday, December 17.

Newcomers are welcome. Club Secretary, Mike DeWispelaere, will also share some of his favorite wildlife photos from 2022.

This is the 123rd year of the Audubon Christmas Bird Count. The Chenango Bird Club has participated since the late 1970s. The count area is a circle with the center being the traffic light in Sherburne and a radius of 7.5 miles as the crow (or blue jay or chickadee) flies. Each team of birders takes a pie shaped segment of that circle and counts the bird species and individuals that they see or hear that day.

We ask that people who live in the count area to make sure their feeders are filled if they are visible from the road and be aware that we may be stopping in front of your house and looking toward your feeders with binoculars. If you are driving the roads in the area on December 17 please be patient with us since we may be driving slowly and stopping frequently.

New participants are welcome to join one of the count teams. People may also participate if they live in the count circle and feed the birds by counting the birds at their feeders.

Attend our meeting on the December 14 to learn more or contact our circle compiler, Mike DeWispelaere at dewispmj@frontiernet.net.

The Chenango Bird Club will be celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2023.

Meetings are normally held at the Rogers Environmental Education Center in Sherburne (2721 NY-80), inside the Visitor's Center. Meetings are the second Wednesday of the months of April through December at 6:30 p.m., starting with a brief business meeting, and followed with various presentations of interest to both birders and general nature enthusiasts.

For more information contact John Knapp at 607-372-1242 or jknapp56@yahoo.com.

-Information provided by the Chenango Bird Club