As we write this on Feb. 17, the Great Backyard Bird Count is in its final hours. We’ve participated and seen some wonderful birds, though like many of you, we were confined to counting from home for part of it because of the snowstorm.

One thing that we found particularly fascinating and enjoyable during our snowbound day at home was how the different species and numbers of birds change throughout the day when you are watching very closely. The close scrutiny of our yard and feeders made us realize that we have as many as five cardinals. Despite the cold, we also noticed that the male cardinals are already robustly singing and fighting. We were surprised, too, by the fact that we only saw two chickadees, no nuthatches, and no woodpeckers in our yard during our Great Backyard Bird Count watches.

The amazing thing about the Great Backyard Bird Count is that our observations are among hundreds of thousands from across the world. As of this writing, more than 253,000 checklists have been submitted tallying up to a total of 7,818 species! Four countries—Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and India—have each registered over a thousand species, with Colombia coming in so far with more than 1,300 species.

Maine birders have done our share. So far, together we’ve submitted more than 1,660 checklists and documented 117 species with participants reporting from all 16 counties. As expected, the southernmost counties have the most species—York, with 95 and Cumberland, with 84. Also as expected, Cumberland County—home to the highest number of people— had the most checklists submitted (436 and rising).

Birders in Lincoln County did pretty well, too. As of this writing they had submitted 141 checklists and found 62 species, brother Alan’s among them. Knox County birders had tallied a few more—65 species. Brother Andrew reported his brown creeper and a few other species from his yard in Sagadahoc County.

Some especially cool birds were documented in Maine during this year’s Great Backyard Bird Count in Maine. There were dovekies down south at Cape Neddick (where there was also a king eider) as well as Downeast at Schoodic Point. There were a number of pine warblers coming to feeders in Lincoln County including in Edgecomb and Damariscotta. A lucky birder in Thomaston photographed both a yellow-bellied sapsucker and a very rare western tanager coming to a feeder.

Someone spotted a rough-legged hawk hovering over Fishermen’s Island off Ocean Point. A golden eagle was seen and photographed in Knox.

On the other hand, participants in the Great Backyard Bird Count this year documented (as of this writing) not a single Bohemian waxwing or common redpoll in Maine, though observers did find them just to our north in Quebec and New Brunswick.

It’s hard to know if they were a sign of spring or were overwintering birds but there were a smattering of red-winged blackbirds, common grackles, and rusty blackbirds documented here in Maine during the count, and many overwintering robins showed up for the event.

Whether you participated in Great Backyard Bird Count 2025 or are just curious about what others found, we hope you will explore the final results yourself at: https://www.birdcount.org/

Jeffrey V. Wells, Ph.D., is a Fellow of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Vice President of Boreal Conservation for National Audubon. Dr. Wells is one of the nation's leading bird experts and conservation biologists. He is a coauthor of the seminal “Birds of Maine” book and author of the “Birder’s Conservation Handbook.” His grandfather, the late John Chase, was a columnist for the Boothbay Register for many years. Allison Childs Wells, formerly of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, is a senior director at the Natural Resources Council of Maine, a nonprofit membership organization working statewide to protect the nature of Maine. Both are widely published natural history writers and are the authors of the popular books, “Maine’s Favorite Birds” (Tilbury House) and “Birds of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao: A Site and Field Guide,” (Cornell University Press).