Birding News 1

This year's theme for the World Migratory Bird Day highlights the important role of citizen science reports in bird conservation by endorsing the "Every Bird Counts – Your Observations Matter" theme. Highlighting the important role of community science for the conservation of migratory birds, World Migratory Bird Day (WMBD) is a United Nations-sponsored initiative that recognizes the importance of birds as key indicators of our environment's health.

Join the excitement of being a member of "The Biggest Birding Team" during the Global Big Day, celebrated each May during peak bird migration around the world! Global Big Day is an annual celebration of the birds around you, wherever you are, wherever you go, and you can participate as long as you wish – 15 minutes or 15 hours on Saturday May 9th. Last year during Global Big Day, birders collected more data about birds during a single day than ever before, with birders reporting more than 7,931 different species of birds collectively during a single day in 204 countries worldwide!

Become a Birdathon birder today by joining Birds Canada's 50th anniversary Birdathon to help birds soar for the next 50 years! For 5 decades, this Birdathon has united people across Canada through one simple idea: Enjoy birds and help protect them at the same time. Since 1976, Birdathon has grown from supporting a single bird observatory to becoming Canada's longest-running fundraiser for bird conservation, raising millions of dollars to protect birds and fund a variety of worthy projects across the country. 

Birding festivals are many things to many birders. Perhaps most of all, they provide great opportunities for you to seek out and view new species of birds on field trips led by local birders who are familiar with the area who will help you improve your ability to identify birds and provide insights about bird behaviors you witness. In addition to well-established birding fests, each year we see communities and organizations start new birding festivals to serve local birders, school groups, and birders who travel to see birds and learn more in the context of a social event during a peak birding period. 

Talk about exciting, April is the turning point for the number of Birding Festivals being held in the United States and Canada, with more than 30 scheduled. Every birding festival is different, ranging from a one-day event to a month-long celebration of birds – but they are all created with opportunities for experienced and novice birders in mind – children too. Birding Festivals are a great opportunity to learn more about birds while connecting with other people interested in birding. At any birding fest you will surely learn more about how to be a better birder. 

This year marks a milestone for Jay Watch: 25 years of volunteers, land managers, biologists, and conservationists coming together to monitor and protect one of Florida's only endemic bird species, the Florida Scrub Jay. What began as a small collaborative survey at 13 sites has grown into a statewide community science program with volunteers monitoring 47 scrub jay populations across 19 counties in central Florida. Jay Watch provides consistent annual survey data to land managers at scrub jay sites where staffing and budgets would limit the ability to conduct regular surveys. 

Birders from the United States, Canada, and worldwide contribute eBird reports that list the birds they see. Along with their bird lists, many birders attach photographs that illustrate one or more of the birds they encountered. These photos are filed in the Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and to date more than 30,000 birders have contributed images through their eBird checklists. In fact, birders have contributed more than 82 million photographs to the Macaulay Library archive, and among these images are some very impressive photos indeed.

As always, birders demonstrated that we can and do join together across borders as friends for bird count events, and during the recent Great Backyard Bird Count, birders reported 8,208 species of the world's birds during the February 13th to 16th GBBC. That total includes 130 more species than the total reported in 2025 – a new record for this long-running winter birding event! This February activity is continuing to grow in popularity, just as birding activities increase in numbers and interest across America and worldwide. 

Spring is in the air as we plan for March migrations and birding opportunities at a variety of Birding Festivals. Every festival event is different, but many of March's birding festivals are long-running annual events that have continued for decades, many providing exciting activities over an entire weekend. Most birding festivals feature speakers and workshops, guided field trips, children's activities, a birding marketplace, and photo-oriented instruction. Most of all, every birding festival creates special social occasions with exciting opportunities for novice and experienced birders in mind.

Are you ready for the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) this President's Day Weekend – this Valentine's weekend? This Friday the 13th? As we have announced in earlier issues, this exciting annual birding event will take place this Friday, February 13th thru Monday the 16th across the United States and Canada, and around the world! It's a remarkable birding event that brings people together with the common interest in birding – people of all nations, ages, sexes, races, religions, politics, and persuasions – everyone with an interest in birds and birding, coming together in a uniting activity that contributes to the science and understanding of birds, and of ourselves.

Nearly 9,000 birders accepted last year's eBird Checklist-a-Day Challenge to produce an average of 1 birding checklist per day throughout 2025 – that's a minimum of 365 checklists submitted to eBird. In December 2024, in advance of the new year, eBird challenged birders from across North America and around the world to submit an average of one complete checklist a day throughout the year. While it's really all about birding and contributing to eBird information, as part of the incentive, the challenge sponsor Zeiss presented a Terra ED 8x42 Binocular to 3 of the participating birders. 

Calling out to all birders with cameras: The annual Audubon bird photography contest is open for entries in 8 categories, and if you take videos of birds, there is a Video category for your best production too. You have until March 4th to enter your photos or videos, which actually gives you another 5 weeks to come up with your best composition yet – Good Luck! Judges will score eligible photos and videos their technical quality, originality, and artistic merit. In addition to bragging rights, significant cash prizes are awarded for the winners in 7 categories.

Pick any week or weekend during February and there is a birding festival for you to join in quality social birding activities at a primo birding location. Enjoy a variety of events that may include guided field trips, informative workshops and presentations, children's activities, featured speakers, a birding expo or marketplace, bird art and photo exhibits and contests, and more. Each birding festival has unique opportunities for beginners and experienced birders in mind to learn more about birds and birding while connecting with others. 

Restorative Birding is a new approach that cultivates a sense of belonging and curiosity to inspire conservation action. It emphasizes noticing bird behavior, the habitat used, and the roles birds play to link those observations back to our lives and surroundings. Continuing from bird identification to observation and interpretation welcomes newcomers, improves accessibility, and opens the door for people of all ages to become more interested in birds and conservation.

Texas has long been a birding mecca throughout the year, and the economic benefits of highlighting birding and eco-tourism in San Antonio, Texas is showing that residents and businesses are seeing the positive impacts economically, ecologically, and emotionally. According to Steven Nivin, PhD, for every $1 invested in birding-related projects it is forecast that $9 will be realized in direct and indirect benefits to the people and city of San Antonio. Birding-based eco-tourism has been acknowledged as an economic opportunity, and the city, Audubon, and other interested groups are investing as a result.

As the first groups of birders rang in the season to identify and count birds for the Audubon Christmas Bird Count (CBC) last Sunday, this special birding tradition continues through January 5th. That means you can still get involved in some CBC counts. Some groups are asking for more help, although some may be filled with participants at this point – check with the local “count compiler” to see if you can help in some way. The 126th CBC is bringing people together with a common goal of documenting local information about “where the birds are” during this winter count period.

They are bearers of universal mysteries, holders of ancient wisdom, seekers of the wildest animals – they are birders. Focused, intense, devoted; they speak in reverent tones and hushed whispers and can walk with surprising silence across a bed of leaves. They wield binoculars with nonchalance and speak in a code-like vocabulary that birders use among themselves – species, plumage, nape, talons, pishing, magnification, wing bars, big days, big sits, and big years. They have lists in notebooks or online lists of birds they see and hear – they are birders.

Audubon's 126th Christmas Bird Count (CBC) will be held during one day between December 14 and January 5, leaving it up to the count compiler that organizes the local count circles across the country to pick the magic day for the CBC in each location. That day birders and anyone interested can join in to help identify and count all birds with the count circle. Count locations are spread out across the Western Hemisphere, stretching from Canada and the United States to Mexico thru Panama, the Caribbean Isles, and South America from Colombia to Peru, Brazil, Paraguay, and beyond.

December had an especially short list of birding festivals, the least of any month, but now there is just one birding festival left for 2025 in the United States – the popular North Shore Birding Festival in Florida, considered one of the top annual birding festivals, will cap off the year December 11 to 15. Unfortunately, due to the historically long federal government shutdown and the subsequent effects to the national wildlife refuge system, the ever-popular Celebration of Cranes at Bosque del Apache Refuge in central New Mexico has been Canceled.

In case you are missing the hummingbirds of summer, or if you are interested in the tropical birds, you will surely be interested in viewing the dazzling color and high-speed flights provided by the Panama Hummingbird Feeder Cam, a live camera view that is focused on the nectar feeder that attracts a flurry of tropical hummingbirds at Canopy Tower in Soberania National Park in central Panama. Watch as White-necked Jacobins are joined by other colorful hummingbirds, such as Snowy-bellied Hummingbirds and Blue-chested Hummingbirds.