(NBP volunteers; photo provided by Kersti Muul, who’s in the front row, third from left)

Even if you’re not a full-fledged birder, you know West Seattle is a great place for bird-watching. And now it’s drawn a special designation related to that: Kersti Muul tells us that Lincoln Park is now part of Seattle Audubon‘s Neighborhood Bird Project:

The NBP started in 1995 and Lincoln Park is the first new addition in over a decade!

Basically, the NBP utilizes citizen science to monitor species diversity throughout the city of Seattle.

Audubon volunteers, under the guidance of a group leader for each park (I am the leader for Lincoln Park), conduct bird surveys once a month on a set date and time. The data we gather is then entered into a master database. The data are used to monitor urban bird abundance, assess the effectiveness of restoration projects, and to educate volunteers regarding their neighborhood habitat, phenology, etc.

Audubon encourages volunteers to pick a park that is in their neighborhood for this reason, as it makes them a stronger and better educated advocate for their locale. Anyone interested can contact Toby Ross, science manager at Seattle Audubon (to***@************on.org).

You can find out more about the NBP here.

Seattle Audubon, by the way, is the source for the BirdWeb infopages we link to species names in the captions of the bird photos featured atop many morning previews on WSB (thanks to the wonderful local photographers who share them, some of whom are involved in the NBP) – BirdWeb provides a wealth of information about each species found in Washington, including what the birds look like, what they sound like, and where their habitats and ranges are.