New GBBC Records

The Great Backyard Bird Count is setting all new records for participation this year. As of 2:00pm EST today, we have a new record of 61,678 checklists submitted--breaking the previous 2000 record of 60,999 checklists. We also have a new record for the number of individual birds counted, currently over 8.6 million birds.

Many states, provinces, and territories have already submitted record numbers of checklists. As of this afternoon, they include Arizona, British Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, New Brunswick, North Carolina, Nunavut, Quebec, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. Several other states are close to breaking their checklist records.

It's still early, and a lot of unusual sightings are still under review, so it would be too early to declare that any state has broken their historic all time species counts, but it looks like that will happen for a good number of states as well.

Thanks to everyone for submitting their counts. While the count is now over, observers have until February 28 to submit their counts online.

Post script (2/22)--As of this morning, 29 states, provinces, and territories have broken their records for checklist submissions. For a comparison, last year only 19 were able to do so.