About the CCBC

This is the web site for volunteers joining the Concord, Massachusetts Christmas Bird Count. We thank you on behalf of the the National Audubon Society, the operating agency of the CBC, for your participation. The Audubon web site has a summary of the history of the Christmas Bird Count and a description of what the volunteers do. Check it out. You do not have to join the National Audubon Society to participate.

Our “sponsor” is Sudbury Valley Trustees, a regional land trust home based at the historic Wolbach Farm in Sudbury. SVT kindly hosts us for our countdown evening and we encourage you to explore their website and join the organization. There are many programs related to birds and birding and opportunities to volunteer and share your expertise. Stay up-to-date with the SVT’s activities by subscribing to the mailing list here.

The Concord Christmas Bird Count is one of over 2,600 active count circles in the Americas and Pacific Islands. A count circle is defined by a center point and a radius of 7.5 miles. Our circle is centered on a point where the town lines of Concord, Acton, Maynard, and Sudbury converge. Please visit the MAPS/Resources page to view or download maps of our circle.

The first Concord CBC bird census in 1960 had seven small parties in Concord and a single volunteer representing neighboring Lincoln, growing in 50 years to become one of the largest count circles in the U.S. measured by number of participants, now about 280. Birder, author, online educator, and natural history impresario Peter Alden of Concord, the founding father of the Concord circle, was a teenager when he noticed that coastal Massachusetts and a few inland communities in the central and western part of the Commonwealth had count circles, but not the Concord area, home to many devoted birders and field ornithologists. Peter was judged too young to sponsor a new circle in the opinion of the National Audubon Society, but he persuaded Mary Sherwood of the Thoreau Lyceum to take sponsorship. Today Peter is serving as Concord’s town Coordinator Emeritus, humorist, and cheerleader, and a few of his volunteers from the early years are still Concord CBC stalwarts as well.