While birding in Brazil, a Campo Flicker provided an impressive sighting and photo for Patricia Isaacson. What birds will you find at a favorite birding location during the October Big Day? Perhaps you will find a Ruby-crowned Kinglet to add to your bird list (photo by Tom Burns in his yard in Minnetonka, Minnesota. A White-throated Dipper photo by Iker Martinez promotes this year's October Big Day festivities coming up Saturday October 11th.

Birders from around the world will join together for October Big Day on Saturday the 11th to share in the biggest birding event we all look forward to each fall season! Join the fun of birding by identifying and counting the birds you see and hear on October 11; then report your list of birds to eBird to contribute to a collective overview of the distribution of bird species during mid-fall migration - it’s that simple! You can make more than one birding list too, then report the birds you see at each location you visit. Or you can contribute by just reporting the birds you see during a shorter period – even 15 minutes of birding will be helpful, even if it’s in your own yard.

During last year’s October Big Day, birders joined to form a birding team that spanned more than 200 nations to participate in this global celebration of birds and birding! Each birder reported the birds observed, and collectively we recorded a new record number of 7,994 different species of birds! This fall let’s collectively break the 8,000 species mark during this single day of birding on October 11th.

Are you ready with a plan for how you will be joining the fun and adding to the excitement of this big birding holiday on Saturday October 11th? You can participate from anywhere and make it a special event by inviting a friend or family member to join you; or you can join a birding event led by a local birding club or Audubon chapter. For more information about how to prepare, see How to Plan A Big Day That’s Fun and Full of Birds | All About Birds.

eBird is the global platform for sharing bird observations, established by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and everyone’s contributions are compiled into a single massive October Big Day list, which provides helpful information for biologists to better understand birds. Until October 11th, you can refer to the results of last year’s October Big Day to see an interesting synopsis of how the information is tallied by geographic regions including national species totals at October Big Day page.

You can also review photos of birds and participants that were shared by birders from around the world, and on game day and thereafter, you can also watch the results roll in from more than 200 countries in real-time. Wherever you are on October 11th, take a few minutes or a few hours to join the world of birding during October Big Day. It’s rewarding to be a part of the biggest worldwide birding team!