Since Project FeederWatch was launched in 1987, researchers at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Bird Studies Canada have been amazed by the quantity of data that FeederWatchers from across North America have contributed. The number of checklists submitted steadily grows each year. When the 99,400 checklists from the 2003-2004 season were added to the FeederWatch database, the Lab's data manager realized that the tally was rapidly approaching one million checklists!

Certainly such a milestone deserved a celebration, so a gift package was assembled for the participant submitting checklist 1,000,000. Our friends at Wild Bird Centers of America donated a pair of Swift binoculars, and Wild Birds Unlimited donated a platform bird feeder. The Lab contributed a free lifetime of FeederWatch participation, a one-year Lab membership, and the Birds at Your Feeder book. The book is based on FeederWatch data and was written by Erica Dunn, founder of Project FeederWatch, and Diane Tessaglia-Hymes, former research coordinator for the project.

With the gift package assembled, we slowly watched the numbers of checklists climb towards 1,000,000 when on January 10, 2005, Dorothy Schroeder of Mooers, New York, submitted the magic checklist.

Congratulations, Dorothy, and thank you for submitting checklist 1,000,000! Visit the Featured FeederWatcher section to learn more about Dorothy.

We thank the thousands of FeederWatch participants who have contributed bird counts since 1987, and look forward to building towards checklist #2,000,000.