We have a long-standing May tradition of traveling over the mountains that contain our valley on the west and dropping into a large bulrush marsh, now a national wildlife refuge managed primarily for waterfowl and migratory songbirds. In a society that prefers to keep its feet dry, preserving wetlands requires a clear commitment to the value of the diverse feathered creatures who thrive here. Unbeknownst to the 3 of us, we have picked this coming Saturday, which is the birding world’s Big Day. Everyday people across the world will identify, count, and report birds encountered on similar adventures.

World Migratory Bird Day happens in both spring and fall, and organizations like Global Birding, Audubon, and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology share in celebrating. Cornell supports birders of all skill levels with both the free Merlin bird ID app and its EBird app that helps people track their life lists, as well as the Big Day checklists to be added to the global record. Last year, over 63,000 people provided 156,000 checklists (you do a separate list as you change locations across the day), setting a record for single day participation in community science for birders. Individuals—or teams, if you prefer—contribute to international data collection as climate change and human population growth and development all shift patterns of bird presence and abundance, as well as habitat suitability. Despite the U.S. government currently stepping deep into climate change denial and attacking data that mentions reality, community science can continue to support information and analysis that goes beyond the artificial boundaries of human politics and national borders.

When I attempted to get set up with EBird, however, I faltered, technically. And to be honest, my life-long reluctance to create a birding life-list also rose up in me, emotionally. Though it need have no bearing on other people, keeping a list seems to me like it could lead a person to settle for quantifying experiences that are so much deeper than numbers. My incompetence with modernity meets my skepticism, and I revert to hand-tallying birds in a tiny notebook. We have lost many years’ tallies over time, but not all of them. And we mostly know if we’re seeing a particular species for the first time: like the painted bunting who joined us for a picnic lunch two years ago at the forested pass looking toward the gold camp ghost town. Sandhill cranes and white-faced ibis are too numerous to get anything but an estimate, and we like to note different blossoming plants as well as the infrequent mammal, whether bottomland badger or mountainside moose. The day together honoring our friendships and the impressive beyond-human array of life is immeasurably valuable to us, even if we don’t count in the global science scene.