If you enjoy watching birds, then you might also enjoy putting your pastime to use for science.

The Kettle Creek Environmental Education Center in Stroudsburg is participating in Project FeederWatch, a study by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology to garner data about the number and types of birds that visit the center’s feeders.

Josie Bonham Marino, an environmental educator at the center, said the data is gathered and sent to Cornell, where it is combined with similar data from all over North America. This large database is then used by scientists who are studying the presence, distribution and movement of bird populations.

Bonham Marino needs six or seven people to volunteer to be citizen scientists and give of their time once or twice a month to count the birds visiting the center’s feeders. She also needs some people willing to be substitute watchers in case another volunteer is not able to make it.

She plans to hold an orientation session to train the volunteers sometime in early November.

“We provide a field guide for anything they might not recognize,” Bonham Marino said.

The guide lists the 20 most common bird species that visit the center. The dark-eyed junco, the mourning dove, the black-capped finch and the Northern cardinal are the top four, Bonham Marino said.

Experienced volunteers and staff will go over bird identification and counting protocols.

Counting will be begin Nov. 12 and will be done every Tuesday and Wednesday (except for the week of Christmas) through April 1.

Volunteers will be watching from inside the center, so don’t worry about being out in the cold.

Once she has the volunteers, Bonham Marino said she plans to have a morning shift from 8 a.m. to noon and an afternoon shift from noon to 3 p.m., but volunteers do not have to fulfill the entire shift. If someone can give an hour once a month or more, then that is welcome as well.

“We get a lot of retirees,” she said, but a mother who home-schools contacted her recently about doing the volunteer work with her children as part of their science lesson.

“I think it’s a great idea.”

Bonham Marino said Cornell is doing the study in order to figure out why the number of birds is decreasing. There are several different theories for the decrease, but climate change and habitat loss are thought to be large factors, she said.

For anyone who wants to put out a bird feeder at home, but is concerned about the bears, Bonham Marino said the winter is a good time to put one out. It is the hardest time for birds to find food.

“And not that bears are completely inactive in the winter, but they are far less,” she said.

Another tip for helping birds is to keep pet cats in the house, she said. That’s where her two cats stay. Outdoor cats are the top predator of birds.

Anyone who is interested in volunteering their time to watch and count birds should call her at 570-629-3061 or email the center at jbmmccd@ptd.net.