Will birders in East Asia find Bull-headed Shrike?
In preparation for the Global Big Day this Saturday, May 9th, we have been reaching out to countries around the world, bringing as many people together as possible to support global bird conservation. Birders, researchers, and conservationists from 80 countries and all 7 continents have confirmed that they’ll be participating so far, and we want to extend a sincere thanks to everybody involved for their efforts to protect the birds that we all care so much about. We are very excited to see how many species will be reported on the Global Big Day, while also helping to build a network of birders across the world that are connected by eBird – all united by a common goal and interest. It is a simple three step process to take part: go birding; submit your sightings to eBird; see your observations as part of a global dataset helping birders, researchers, and conservationists worldwide. It’s that easy! Read on for more information about specific efforts, and to find out if your country is taking part.
Learn more about the Global Big Day
In our opinion, one of the main strengths of the Global Big Day is creating a global community of countries, organizations, and individuals, all helping to share information about their local birds. Most countries in Europe will have a group or groups of people taking part, many parts of Africa, including Zimbabwe, Uganda, Congo, and Rwanda will be out in the field, and every country in South America except French Guiana will be birding on May 9th. Locations that traditionally don’t have many birders, like Iran, Iraq, and Uzbekistan, will be birding on May 9th. Local organizations have stepped up to bat in many of these countries, some of them generating truly impressive efforts.
The photo shown below is of the Peruvian birding map for the Global Big Day – where over 97(!) birding groups will be out on the 9th, seeing what they can find to perhaps put them in the #1 slot for species reported. Not to be outdone, Brazil has rallied hundreds of birders of their own, and Colombia has dozens if not hundreds of birders spread across their country country as well, making the “battle” for most species potentially quite close!
CORBIDI, in Peru, has organized an amazing Global Big Day effort of almost 100 groups of eBirders
Of course, this friendly competition only has the outcome of more information about bird distribution, and more people outside birding! In fact, almost every country in South America has let us know that they’ll be having some Global Big Day participation, and the “bird continent” should put up some amazing figures for both participation and birds seen. The Argentine efforts have gotten almost 1,000 people involved through a Facebook event alone, in addition to extensive publicity by AvesArgentina through other channels.
Moving north, Central America has participants in almost every country, including several dedicated big days in Guatemala, Honduras, and of course, Team Sapsucker in Panama. Elsewhere in the world, in India we previously highlighted the Endemic Bird Day efforts, their Global Big Day event targeted specifically at the endemic species of southern Asia. BirdLife Zimbabwe is generating in south-central Africa, and we are very excited to see the species that their efforts will turn up. An amazing 24 of the participating countries hail from Europe, and from Turkey to Norway, and Latvia to the Azores, eBirders will be out and about, seeing what they can find.
Together, can we find 4,000 species in a day, all as a part of Team eBird? Find out in just a few days!
Will eBirders in Mexico encounter Bumblebee Hummingbird?
If you live in a country that isn’t yet represented in our Regional Events page, and will be out birding on May 9th, we’d love to know!
