Photo credit: Project FeederWatch/Jennifer Taggart

It is apparently not enough just to feed the birds in the winter.

Now we have to count them, too.

Project FeederWatch, the subject of my garden column today in The Baltimore Sun, has been underway since November and continues until April.

And The Great Backyard Bird Count is scheduled for the weekend of Feb. 12-15.

The problem for Garden Variety is telling the difference between all those little brown birds that hit her birdfeeder every morning like it was free pizza day in the high school cafeteria.

My colleague, Meredith Cohn, wrote in The Baltimore Sun about all the high-tech help for birders and how this might be contributing to an increased interest in the activity.

I don't know about you, but the finches and the sparrows all look like little brown smudges to me.

Here is some help, in the way of more pictures, from David Bonter, who coordinates Project FeederWatch, for Cornell University.