A beautiful Prairie Warbler photographed by Raspberry Yow-Fairs during one of the Youth Birders Event’s birding hikes. The Cornell Lab’s Young Birders Event featured participants who were high school aged, 14 to 17. Here the group focused on a Northern Waterthrush sighted along a watercourse.

Last summer, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology welcomed 16 teenagers from around the world for the 14th annual Young Birders Event. These stellar young birders spent 4 days learning about career paths in ornithology, attending hands-on workshops with staff and scientists, and getting outdoors for lots of birding together. An exciting aspect of the post-Event activities was the collection of personal accounts written by each of the young birders that provide insights into what they experienced and learned while participating in the Young Birders Event.

Having shared that information, it’s probably best to refer you directly to the young birders’ own words to appreciate how instrumental this and similar opportunities can be for people who already have a focused interest in birds, birding, and in expanding those interests in possible professional directions. You can read some of the participant’s written accounts and reactions to the Young Birders Event at 2025 Young Birders Event Recap - eBird

In addition to the Cornell Lab’s event, similar activities for young birders are available, and certainly could be an important way of reaching out to our young people across the United States, Canada, and beyond. Perhaps leaders of birding festivals would be interested in developing a second event for young birders fashioned after the Cornell blueprint with local professionals, biologists, and birders providing leadership roles.

When reading the Young Birders’ accounts, you can see that it’s important just to spend time with people in their age group who have similar interests in birds, and who they can relate to and share time with and learn together. Ultimately, a more local event can lead to the development of a Young Birders Group who meet and enjoy birding together, developing special group projects, and inviting other students to learn more about birds and birding.

Back to the next Cornell Young Birders Event, if you are a young birder aged between 14 and 17 who is interested in attending next year’s Event, applications will be available in February 2026, but you can learn more now at Young Birders Event - eBird