Crashproof your windows, know what's on a bird's winter diet, and sign up for Project Feederwatch today.

"Hey Ralph, you ever get the the feeling that you're being watched?"

RODALE NEWS, ITHACA, NY—Bird-watching has been scientifically proven to lower stress levels, but sometimes it's the stories—not the stats—that speak volumes of what backyard bird-watching can do for the human spirit.

Bird expert and radio host Laura Erickson, science editor at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, NY, and author of 101 Ways to Help Birds (Stackpole Books, 2006) and the award-winning Sharing the Wonder of Birds with Kids (University of Minnesota Press, 1996) could fill an entire afternoon telling you stories she's heard from listeners and friends. She's found that people living with cancer find an inner peace by watching feathered friends visit backyard bird feeders every morning. A man paralyzed from a stroke felt his first sensation months after the stroke when a chickadee landed in his hand. His wife had placed mealy worms there to attract the friendly, little backyard birds for a quick bite to eat before flying off.

These stories, and the thousands of others like them, highlight the emotional attachment many of us have to wild birds. And by spending time backyard bird-watching, you can give a little back to your feathered friends (besides the bird seed, that is). Your observations can be a very important contributor to scientific efforts to monitor plummeting bird populations and find ways to boost avian populations. After all, if bird populations aren't doing well, it could be a sign of what's to come for us, too.

THE DETAILS: Project FeederWatch, a joint research and education project of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Bird Studies Canada, runs November through April. Every year, thousands of people across the U.S. and Canada sign up to be "FeederWatchers," and periodically count the birds visiting their feeders, and then report their totals online or by sending in paper data forms. This type of work is known as citizen science, and it allows researchers to collect data simultaneously from all over the country. Changes in bird populations from year to year could be normal, but some could suggest other problems—like the dwindling of a particular species' food supply, or habitat loss in breeding or wintering grounds. For instance, FeederWatch data from Florida showed that the winter population of the painted bunting has declined steadily since the 1980s. This and complementary data from the Breeding Bird Survey sparked a Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission program to determine the cause of the population decline, and how to protect the species. "It's fun, but it provides really useful, important data on bird populations and climate change, too," explains Erickson.

FeederWatch data collected by citizen scientists helps researchers not only pinpoint where birds are, but also where they aren't, which is equally important in research. Because birders count backyard visitors from feathered friends during the winter, it helps scientists monitor about 100 species that live across North America during this time of the year.