Of course, the bears haven't been joining in for quite as long as forty years, but they have done it for the last few years and so are old paws at getting themselves organised. They have lots of bird feeders set up in their garden and they made sure that they were full of all the things that birds like to eat before they started their hour of counting.
They also made sure that the new bird bath was full of clean water. You can read about how they made that here. And they put out two of the home-made suet cakes they made for the birds. If you want to make some yourselves, you can follow the recipe here.