Anita’s Blog – Citizen Scientists Are Volunteers
- jjvanm
- Jan 14
- 6 min read
Texas Master Naturalist volunteering includes Citizen Scientist opportunities.
Citizen scientists help collect data, analyze observations and help identify research.
National Geographic.org describes citizen science as the practice of public participation and collaboration in scientific research to increase scientific knowledge.
Through citizen science, people share and contribute to data monitoring and collection programs.
Citizen scientist volunteers have varying levels of expertise, experience, knowledge and are from any age group.
Typical citizen scientists are members of the general public, members of a multitude of organizations, like Texas Master Naturalist, residents, visitors, Winter Texans, amateurs, professionals, scientists, administrators, politicians, students, educators, retired folks . . . – anyone with an interest in collecting data.
Areas of interest for citizen science involvement are varied. Texas Master Naturalist events revolve around the natural world.
Citizen scientists participate in bioblitz opportunities.
A bioblitz is an event that focuses on finding and identifying as many species as possible in a specific area over a short period of time.
The primary goal of a bioblitz is to get an overall count of plants, animals, birds, butterflies, moths and other insects and wildlife that live in a place.
Bioblitz opportunities abound throughout the year for Texas Master Naturalist involvement. One such opportunity is soon:
January 24 and 25, 2026 – “2026 NPSOT Invasive Species BioBlitz.”
It is a community-involved citizen scientist bioblitz sponsored by the Native Plant Society of Texas to document invasive plants using iNaturalist.org. Anyone may participate. Check out this link for more about joining this bioblitz: at https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/2026-npsot-invasive-species-bioblitz or by searching the projects in iNaturalist.org for “2026 NPSOT Invasive Species BioBlitz.” Check the chapter website Saturday, January 17, 2026, for the McAllen Monitor article for more information.
GBBC is next -- this is BIG!
February 13-16, 2026 – Great Backyard Bird Count
The GBBC is an easy, fun and important citizen science project. It’s annual, it’s global. Type gbbc 2026 in your search engine or go to www.birdcount.org for links to instructions on how to participate.
Their website has information about the project’s importance to researchers, free apps to download, bird lists, stories about what has been discovered through this event, see results from previous years and how to upload count data and photos (if you choose to photograph birds). The event is a count; photographs are accepted but not required.
The GBBC is about all the birds you can count: ducks, waders, seaside and dune birds, perching birds, raptors – common or unusual, regulars and those just passing through.
The GBBC event is as simple as counting birds in one place for as little as 15 minutes – whether you choose your backyard, neighborhood, city park, water plant ponds, landfill, utility poles and wires, city intersection, beach or you want to travel to your favorite nature preserve where experts can help with bird identification – because . . .
While counting birds is easy, bird identification may not be, especially for a novice. However, there are free bird identification phone apps and birding websites available. The Rio Grande Valley has a remarkable number of birds all year long. In the winter, hundreds more winter-over and many others migrate through.
To complicate identification, some birds are dimorphic while others are monomorphic.
Dimorphic: Male and female birds of the same species look different.
Monomorphic: Male and female birds of the same species have one form.
The count doesn’t separate male and female; it’s important only in dimorphic so you know you’re seeing one species when counting, not two.
One year I wondered why a sparrow had hooked up with a red-wing blackbird. I nearly didn’t believe the identification, but female red-wing blackbirds look nothing like the male.
Great-tailed grackles and orioles are dimorphic.
European starlings are dimorphic – but just: the male has a bluish spot at the bill base; females have a pinkish spot but never mind getting that close; here’s something more helpful: European starlings have iridescent plumage in summer and spotted plumage in winter. This species is invasive, and invasive species are important to the count, too.
Most birds you see are monomorphic.
For beach lowers, gulls are generally monomorphic in plumage, (males are typically larger) -- but there will be different species in a group of gulls at the beach to add interest and perplexity to your count. Wading birds like ibis, egrets and herons, and shore birds, like sanderlings, ruddy turnstones, piping plovers and willets, are monomorphic.
Black-bellied whistling ducks, vultures and Caracara are monomorphic.
Expert bird counters offer a helpful idea for counting large groups of birds. Grab a shot, even with your phone camera. Count the birds in approximately one quarter of the photo. Then multiply by four. You will get a viable count. You also can count every bird in the photo, if you really want . . . .
Many song sparrows and field sparrows are monomorphic. In the winter, we have house sparrows and lark and Lincoln sparrows come through, too, and really, they don't all look alike as shown in the below photos, respectively.
February may be too early for many of the migratory birds to be passing through, but many birds spend the winter in the Rio Grande Valley. To count birds for the GBBC, any bird that you can recognize, and count is important for the global tally so don’t shy away from participating if you can’t identify every bird -- there's help.
Texas is blessed with nearly 634 species of birds. About 500 species have been documented in the Rio Grande Valley
A great source to see photos of birds is at the Texas A&M University, Texas Breeding Bird Atlas -- https://txtbba.tamu.edu/species-accounts/ -- at the site, click on the highlighted bird name.
Other popular Websites with valuable bird information:
• Cornell University of Ornithology -- allaboutbirds.org
• National Audubon Society -- audubon.org
• American Bird Conservancy -- americanbirdconservancy.org
• Birds of the World -- birdsoftheworld.org
The GBBC is a global, inter-organizational effort between the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, National Audubon Society and Birds Canada. People of all ages participate in this annual community-driven science count, whether logging one or hundreds of birds.
Last year, Texans in all 254 counties completed more than 11 thousand checklists and observed 371 species of birds, down from 2023’s count of 384 species of birds.
With more participants, the potential is there to document more species this year -- and a fun way to earn Volunteer Hours as a Texas Master Naturalist or new class member. It's more fun when you partner up!
Last year’s stats: The top two counties in 2025 were Cameron, with 217 species documented from 564 checklists and Hidalgo, with 198 species from 880 checklists. Starr County ranked 10th, documenting 151 species from 213 checklists and Willacy County, 154th with 32 species and 10 checklists.
Interesting links from the 2025 count:
Link to Texas county statistics:
Who saw what, where and how many in Cameron County:
Who saw what, where and how many in Hidalgo County:
2,000 great-tailed grackles -- Really?! And it wasn’t the intersection I would have guessed!
Don’t stop now: Mark your calendar for later, in April, to participate in another popular and important bioblitz volunteer opportunity: April 24-27, 2026 City Nature Challenge
