Hi everybody this is Joe Lample the Joe behind Joe Gardner and welcome to the Joe Gardner show

Gardeners often do what they do because they love being outside in nature

Sure there are those that gardens strictly for the harvest, be it food or flowers, but for the rest of us, it's more than that, it's a much bigger picture actually.

It's not just the flora, but the fauna too.

We care about fostering environments to keep wildlife safe, we give them a place for

shelter and protection and places to raise their young, suffice it to say we often roll out the

welcome mat and do all that we can to let them know that they've come to the right place.

And I would say that is especially true for birds.

We make frequent trips to the store to restock the bird feed,

baffle the poles to prevent predators, clean and refresh the bird bath every few days,

provide a heater and winter to keep the water from freezing over and we're constantly

referring to our field guide and apps to identify bird song or a new to us

sighting and then of course each winter we gear up for the Great Backyard Bird Count or Project Feeder Watch or both to dedicate some time to count and record the bird species and how many of each that come to our feeders.

We record the data and then log in to report our

findings. But what happens to all that data that gets reported from around the

country and beyond? Years and years of data, in fact, what is it telling us about the work that we're doing each year with our citizen science role to report our findings?

Recently I put those questions in more to Ann McGreg, U.S. ProjectS. Project Feeder Watch, which is administered in the United States

by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and in Canada by Birds Canada.

In her role, Emma manages all aspects of the project. She reviews flagged records,

analyzes data, and writes scientific journal articles. So let's get started with my

conversation with Emma, and as we do, thanks to our sponsors for today's episode

Heirloom Roses and Milorgonite. Roses often get a bad rap for being

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