Dans Rock Bird Count (2024)

We're so pleased to welcome Josh Ward to lead our third season of the Dans Rock Bird Count. We'll continue gathering valuable migration data from the iconic Dans Rock Overlook, which is located south of Frostburg at the highest point in Allegany County, Maryland. The count will document fall bird migration here from August 1st through November 30th.

If you would like to support this effort, please donate via the link above. You can monitor updates via Trektellen and eBird as well as via the MBP special projects blog and on social media (MBP on Facebook and Instagram).

Meet the Counter

◆ Josh Ward

A native of Howard County, Josh has been fascinated by the natural world - birds in particular - since before he could even talk. He has considered himself a birder since the first time he saw a Prairie Warbler singing in an overgrown field behind Triadelphia Reservoir. Those woods remain one of his favorite places to explore! Josh spent nearly five years living in the Blue Ridge of southwestern Virginia while pursuing a degree in wildlife conservation from Virginia Tech, with which he graduated in the fall of 2022. This time spent in Appalachia inspired within him a deep love of all the wild places the world has to share. This love has taken him to many special places, from breeding bird surveys in Virginia to Marbled Murrelet surveys in Oregon, and from shorebird nest-searching in the Alaskan Arctic to assisting with big cat research in Belize. He is excited to once again be birding in the mountains he has come to love, this time in his home state of Maryland. Outside of the natural sciences, Josh is a passionate writer and composer of poems about his experiences in nature. He hopes not just to contribute some of this work towards the conservation and education goals of MBP, but to one day make it his career. He is honored for this opportunity to contribute valuable data to the field of ornithology, and welcomes anything the mountains of Maryland have to offer him this season.

Read more about the Count on the MBP blog page.