Due to a passing in the family a few years ago and my subsequent health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for years after the bereavement. Thank you for the opportunity.

Beautiful and educational nonficiton book about the history of The National Audubon Society’s annual Christmas Bird Count. Great book for inspiring bird related art as well.

Oh my gosh, give me a second while I swoon over the illustrations. They are amazing! And the illustrator’s name – Clover Robin – is pretty fantastic, too. But wait. There’s more! The book itself is equally fabulous. Written by Heidi E.Y. Stemple, the daughter of an avid bird lover and the esteemed children’s author Jane Yolen, it is no surprise that this book is great.

This non-fiction picture book introduces us to a great lover of birds, ornithologist and writer Frank Chapman. Birds were his passion and when more and more birds were becoming endangered due to overhunting, he had to take action. The result was the beginning of one of the largest bird conservation and citizen scientist efforts ever.

At the time, hunting birds on Christmas Day was a tradition. Hunters would make a game of it, breaking off in groups that would hunt and kill as many birds as possible. Whoever killed the most won. Frank Chapman disliked this tradition, for obvious reasons, and sought to change it. In his birding magazine, Bird-Lore (now Audubon Magazine), he proposed an alternative to his readers: hunt the birds, but count them instead of killing them, and then submit the data they collected to the magazine for a final tally. The first year was successful, and as the years have passed, the tradition has continued, growing beyond anything Chapman could ever have expected.

Again, the illustrations are superb, but this book is truly the whole package. It is exactly the kind of non-fiction my children go gaga over. It is factual, historical, and about animals! In truth, I loved it as well. The older I get, the more interested I become in birds, and picture books are so straightforward, I feel like I got a lot of information in a quick and fun way.

A great book for the whole family!

4★
“On Christmas Day, sports hunters would gather, choose teams, and hold a bird competition. All day long, the hunters looked for birds. Large birds, small birds, all birds were game. At the end of the day, the birds were counted. The winning team was the side that had shot and killed the most birds.”

My Goodreads review includes an illustration, captioned: Hunters in the snow with beautiful birds in the trees.

This is an attractive children’s history of how we started counting birds instead of shooting them. Frank Chapman, a bird lover, worked at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. I used to love going to our local natural history museum to see whatever happened to be on show. That was many years after this story took place.

In 1899, as Americans were getting interested in conservation, Chapman started a magazine, ‘Bird Lore’, and then decided to promote a bird hunt of a different kind. Hunt them and count them but don’t shoot them.

My Goodreads review includes an illustration captioned with the quote: “Christmas Day 1900, 27 watchers counted birds in 25 places.”

My Goodreads review includes an illustration of several birds, captioned: These are some of the 18.500 birds from 89 different species that were spotted.

My Goodreads review includes an illustration: of a map of the world with the following caption:

“In 2016, which marked the 117th count, 73,153 birders (62,677 in the field and 10,476 at feeders) participated in 2,536 count circles. They counted 56,139,812 birds from 2,636 different species. Frank Chapman would be very happy with these results.”

He sure would. And his ‘Bird Lore’ magazine became the famous ‘Audobon Magazine’.

Thanks to NetGalley and Quarto Books / Seagrass Press for the preview copy. I’m sorry the pictures don’t show up in Goodreads apps.

Good Illustrations with wonderful information on the Annual Audubon Christmas Count.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the eARC

This was a really educational book about bird conservation. I was aware of the Audubon society and their work, but this gave background and a ton of information that I had never heard before. The information given was entertaining and didn't make you feel like you were studying. Its perfect for kids with an interest in birds, or really any animals.

I definitely like and agree with the message of this book - we should protect birds and nature. But I think there were better ways to share it.

The art is lovely, but the story did not seem as entertaining and the message might get lost if it doesn't catch the kids' attention.

Counting Birds, by Heidi E.Y. Stemple is a very interesting, beautifully coloured book. I very much liked the birds, but I had had the problem with the format not fitting in the screen properly and it was difficult to trace small fonts and pictures/images. Otherwise I enjoyed the book tremendously. It is a nice, sensitive and heat-warming story.

Counting Birds: The Idea That Helped Save Our Feathered Friends tells the story of how the Christmas Bird Count came to be.

Frank Chapman loved birds. He worked at the American Museum of Natural History in the bird section. In 1899 he started a bimonthly magazine called Bird Lore that later became the Audubon magazine.

Around this time Americans were starting to become aware of the destruction of wilderness areas and a conservationist movement was building: people who wanted to preserve these spaces and the animals who lived in them.

Unfortunately, not everyone cared. Each Christmas day a traditional bird hunt was held where hunters would go out and kill as many birds as they could find. They killed all kinds of birds. The team that killed the most birds was the winner.

Frank Chapman did not like this. Through his magazine he proposed that rather than hunting and killing birds, they engage in a Christmas bird census. At the first one in 1900, 27 birdwatchers in 25 different locations counted 18,500 birds from 89 different species. They hunted birds, but none of them were killed.

Every year since then more and more people have joined in on this Christmas census taking so that it is now a global event. Owlers start out at midnight calling down owls and as these people are returning to their beds, the rest of the birders emerge.

All the data they collect goes to the National Audubon Society. "The Audubon Christmas Bird Count has become the largest running citizen science project and wildlife census in the world." In 2016, 73,153 birders identified 2,636 species and counted 56,139,812 birds. When the count is over there is still some competition over who has the highest count, but thankfully, no birds are killed. And all because Frank Chapman loved birds.

The back matter includes additional information on Frank Chapman, how to become active in bird counts in your area and other ways to become involved. In the notes from the author I discovered that Heidi E.Y. Stemple is daughter to Jane Yolen. Their family was part of the bird count and she is the girl in Yolen's Owl Moon.

This book is a delight to read. I was enchanted by the story itself and nearly swooned at the beauty of Clover Robin's illustrations. Her brightly coloured collages are full of details. Whether she is illustrating landscapes or birds on their own, she imparts a vintage ambience that is perfect for this nonfiction title.

After reading this book I had to go and reread Owl Moon. I can't help but find deep layers meaning in it that I wouldn't have realized were there without this book.

When I was a teen, I started a summer program that invited me to count all the different kinds of butterflies that live in my garden Year after year, many were disappearing and it was such a joy to spot some rare one. This book reminds me of this scientific tradition. <b>Counting Birds</b> is a fascinating book about the Audubon Christmas Count, an annual scientific project that invites people from all over the world to count as many birds as possible on Christmas Day. All begin with Frank Chapman, an self-made ornithologist, who decided to replace the famous 'Christmas bird hunting' by a 'Christmas bird counting'. He was inspired by the oh so famous ornithologist John Audubon, and later used his name for this annual bird counting.

I enjoyed the colorful and accurate collage art style, and I especially loved when the author introduces different types of birds one by one. What a great idea to include an invitation to become of 'birder', someone helping to count bird, or to become a member of one of many other organizations that work on the preservation of birds! From beginning to end, this is a very well-crafter book!

Counting Birds is a story about something I had no idea about. It starts by telling us the story of Frank Chapman and his disgust at the annual Christmas tradition of going outside and shooting as many birds as you could for fun. This was back in the late 1800s and early 1900s when people were beginning to think about conservation. He came up with an idea to stop the killing of the birds, but preserving "the hunt". He published it in his magazine, Bird-Lore, which is now the Audubon Magazine. His idea of an annual "bird count" has since developed into a worldwide conservation project organized by the Audubon Society. This book celebrates the joy of discovery and conservation of our feathered friends, while enjoying and appreciating them in the wild. The last few pages gives information on how the bird count works, and how the average citizen can participate. One interesting tidbit, if you ever read Owl Moon by Jane Yolen about calling owls, this book is written by her daughter, the young girl in that story. There is a brief biography of Frank Chapman at the back, a hero to animals, that I had never heard of before. The story is accompanied by great illustrations, including many of the birds counted, and would interest anyone who loves animals,especially birds. This would make a great addition to a family, public or school library. What a great project for a family to take on together. The publisher, Seagrass Press, provided me with a copy of this book to read. The rating, ideas and opinions shared are my own.

I received an arc from Netgalley for an honest review. LOVE this book and even more excited to read that it was written by Jane Yolens daughter. Token wrote Owl Moon and it was one of my favorites as a child. Great story about birds and how one person can make a difference. Can’t wait to get my own copy.

AHHHHHH. This is written by Jane Yolen’s daughter. As in the writer of Owl Moon’s daughter. It’s about Frank Chapman and his quest to stop Christmas bird hunts, and bring about Christmas Bird Counts. The tradition continues today through the Audubon Society. The author Heidi has been involved since she was a child. This book is part story about Frank Chapman, and part non-fiction about how any reader can get involved, how the author got involved, and why these annual counts matter. The illustrations are great, and overall, I love this book. Even if I didn’t know it was connected to Owl Moon, I would still love it.

Do you know a child who loves nature? One who is interested in birds? If yes, this could be a lovely addition to their bookshelf.

There is lots of talk about the environment these days. In this book, children will discover that nature and preservation were being discussed in 1900 as well. This book tells the story of Frank Chapman and his contributions.

About Mr. C:

"He worked at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City...He wrote book and magazine articles about birds. He studied birds' habits and habitats...Frank Chapman loved birds."

Mr Chapman was dismayed by sport hunting that took place on Christmas Day. He initiated changes that led to bird counts rather than bird culls. This book tells how he did that and how today's young explorers can become bird counters too.

The book has informative illustrations. These include pictures of a number of bird species. There are additional resources and suggestions at the back of the book. The note from the author is also interesting. We learn that she was the little girl in Jane Yolen's book, Owl Moon.

Thanks to NetGalley and Quarto for this great book on nature and birds.

This is a very decent introduction for the young to the idea of organised bird counts – taking us right to the doorstep of associations that do such things (well, mostly in the USA, but you can't have everything). The inspiration for them and for us would be a certain self-taught specialist, Frank Chapman, who railed against late-Victorian hunting parties and feather-based fashions. With very good design throughout, the text loses a lost of its initial simplicity and brevity in the later, detailed sections, but the backstory as it were is encouraging, and this first step to being a 'citizen scientist' is a welcome one.

Well done children book on the topic of science. I think it was very accessible to young minds and the writing was clear and direct. My only reason for rating it lower than 5 stars was because it felt short and somewhat flat - while it was informative I didn't feel it had the excitement or story flow of an engaging narrative. The illustrations were great!

Short and sweet, this book is absolutely precious. "Counting Birds" is the story of the beginning of the Sierra Club's bird count program. The book does not focus on the Sierra Club, but rather on how the bird count started, and why. The illustrations, though, are what truly make this book special. They are colorful, creative, and totally heartwarming. Any bird lover will just love this book, even if only for the sweet illustrations. Such a sweet book, and it would make a wonderful holiday gift for a bird lover of any age! A special thanks to the publisher, who provided me with a free electronic copy of the book. I was not required to write a review. The opinions stated here are my own.

This book was quite beautiful and very interested to my first grade bird-lover. We enjoyed the story and illustrations. My daughter also enjoyed finding birds we had ID-ed on walks in the illustrations.

This is the story of Frank Chapman who worked for the American Museum of National History in New York. In 1899 he began his own magazine called Bird Love. He found that more and more birds where being killed and wanted to protect them from extinction. He started a bird watcher group around Christmas time to track all the birds people see by counting and recording. It spread throughout the world. Bird Love magazine became the Audubon Magazine and in 2016 they had their 117th count. This is a great thing to do for a family outing and to get children into nature and appreciate the birds and wildlife we have today. The back of the book tells you how to get involved with the count and other ways to help the birds too. This book has nice illustrations and illustrations of some of the birds. I recommend this to 5+ year olds.
I received this book in exchange for my honest opinion

Fantastic book for nature lovers and bird enthusiasts or for children to learn something new. We frequently go to the local nature reserves looking for birds and we have a very bird friendly garden so naturally my daughter absolutely loved this book and the illustrations are fantastically clear.