Tahoe Institute for Natural Science will be putting on a Christmas bird count on Dec. 17 from 8am-5pm.

This annual count is widely regarded as the largest and oldest citizen science project in the world. Each year, from Dec. 14-Jan. 5 tens of thousands of volunteers head out into the winter to count birds for a day. This tradition goes back to 1900, and in the intervening years, these birders have built a database on bird populations that is unmatched by any other wildlife census.

Local participants will meet at Alpina Coffee Cafe on Emerald Bay Road in South Lake Tahoe at 8am. The group will bird at Cove East and then split into smaller groups to bird at other areas.