Christmas Bird Count 2026

As usual, our London Christmas Bird Count will take place on the first Saturday of the Count period, which is always between Dec 14 and Jan 5. Thus, for this year, the first Saturday is on the 19th of December.

If you are not sure of what and how to count, or are interested in the history and purpose of the Christmas Bird Count, please check out this link: Birds Canada, organizer of all Canadian Counts, at https://www.birdscanada.org/programs/christmas-bird-count.

We have been completing our London Count since 1909, and the map below shows the Count Circle. If you are wondering why it doesn't include all of London, the Circles are a standardized size and were designed to cover almost all the traditional sites from the early days; now the city has expanded beyond our established Circle. It is centred at Reservoir Park near Springbank Park.

If you have a bird feeder and would like to count bird species and their numbers, and you are within the official London Count Circle, let me know starting in November.

We have limited space on several teams across the Count Circle, set up for bird-by-car and on-foot counts. The routes are mostly long-established, but I can often find spaces or create new routes depending on how much time you can give to Count Day. I try to place people near where they live so they don’t have to travel far during the winter. We don't cancel the event because of inclement weather, but we stress safety and ask people to count only their feeders or take safe walks near their homes.

Some people use eBird to enter their data. Still, for the London Count, we use a customized online data-entry system because we have so many participants and our database is set up in a specific format. Entering your data is easy, and I will send links to one team member and feeder people as we get closer to the date.

If you have taken part before as either a Feeder Watcher or a Field Participant, I will be in touch in early November 2026 to discuss your participation.

Pete Read psread11@gmail.com

519-476-2169