Audubon’s annual Christmas Bird Count is underway, including one local count that was held on Sunday, Dec. 16.

In that count, which focused on Gloucester’s Rosewell Plantation and surrounding areas, members of the Middle Peninsula Bird Club spotted 524 individual birds of 50 different species, according to club member Susan Crockett. 

Another other local component of this year’s Audubon Christmas Bird Count will be held this coming Sunday in Mathews County. 

Joyce McKelvey, who has coordinated the Mathews event for a number of years, said that the Mathews Visitor and Information Center will once again allow a spot on its front porch for a box for pickup and drop-off of data sheets and sector materials the night before the count and a few days following.

For more information about Sunday’s Mathews count, call 804-725-6859 or e-mail mathewsbirdcount@yahoo.com.

The annual Audubon-led census is one of the longest-running bird-monitoring projects in th...