Get sponsors who will support you for each species you see, whether you see them in your backyard for two or three hours, or whether you join a team that covers the
state in 24. You'll be out of town in May? Count birds on your travels. It’s fun, it’s challenging, it’s a blast! And it helps birds.

Why are we interested in birds? John Fitzpatrick gives this answer. He says nothing in nature captures our fancy or arouses our curiosity more than birds.

“They live from the windswept high Arctic to the world’s driest deserts, and everywhere in between. Some hunt in the darkest of nights, navigating by listening for their own echoes. Others hunt from high in the shy using eyesight far keener than our own. Some raise just a single chick every two or three years, others can hatch a flock of their own several times a year. They may eat other animals (tiny to large), vegetables (seeds and fruits to leaves and buds), and even minerals (clay to sheep bones). They flap, soar, stoop, glide, swim, dive, walk, hop, and run like the wind. They can dance with choreography that baffles us, sing with melodies that haunt us, display with decorations that enchant us, and feign injury so convincingly as to fool us. Some mate for life and live in extended families, others mate for an instant and never see their offspring. Some never leave the local woodlot all their lives, others know the planet as a north-south stage to move across twice a year.”

These fascinating creatures are losing their living space and they need our help. They need your help. If we keep common birds common, the rarer birds will face a better future. So we raise money for birds and work for a bird-friendly planet. Join Birdathon
this year. If interested and you don’t know what to do, call Jim Rettig, 425-402-1833. Packets of information, which include everything you need for this event, are available now through Mr. Rettig or the ELWAS office.