In 1987, my column predecessor and College biology professor, Allen Benton, started an annual bird feeder survey. The purpose of this survey was to determine the winter movement of birds in our county, and, nearby western New York areas. When Allen stopped writing this column I was invited to replace him. I continued this tremendous study since that time, as this was an easy task for me as I served as Allen's data recorder all the years he did the hard work. Since we are experiencing one of our more difficult winters in many years, it should be interesting to see what species of birds are currently appearing at our bird feeders. To give a little history from Allen's data, in 1987, the first year of the count, we had 37 species recorded by 60 contributors and the data peaked in 2003 with 195 contributors reporting 50 species. The largest number of species that was reported was 64 in 1999.