The first Christmas Bird Count was held on Christmas Day in 1900.  Now a long-standing program of the National Audubon Society, it is an early-winter bird census, where thousands of volunteers across the U.S., Canada and many countries in the Western Hemisphere go out over a 24-hour period on one calendar day to count birds. The Brown Family Environmental Center is organizing people to count birds at your feeders, within a well-defined circle around Mount Vernon.  If your feeders fall within our count circle, you can count for 30 minutes, 2 hours or all day–whatever works for you!  Simply watch your bird feeder(s) from your warm, cozy home and help us with the count.