Mark your calendars for October Big Day—9th October 2021! Big Days are a 24-hour opportunity to celebrate birds near and far and your Atlas checklists can still contribute to the day’s effort.
Wherever you are on 9th October, take a few minutes to join the world of birding on October Big Day. By taking part in October Big Day you’re also joining the second-ever Global Bird Weekend and celebrating World Migratory Bird Day. Remember you do NOT need to switch portals to contribute! Submitting as you do to the NZ Bird Atlas portal contributes towards the big day count. If you can spare 5 or 10 minutes, report your bird observations to eBird online or with the free eBird Mobile app. If you have more time, submit checklists of birds throughout the day. You never know what you might spot. Your observations help towards the Atlas dataset, but will also support global datasets, to then better understand global bird populations through products like the animated abundance maps brought to you by eBird Science.
We recognize that COVID-19 continues to impact our communities. Even if your local conditions have improved, we always encourage everyone to put safety first, follow local guidelines, and bird mindfully. You can bird from home and still participate in October Big Day!
How to participate:
- Get an eBird account: eBird is a worldwide bird checklist program used by millions of birders. It’s what allows us to compile everyone’s sightings into a single massive October Big Day list—while at the same time collecting the data for scientists to use to better understand birds. Sign up here. It’s 100% free.
- Watch birds on 9th October. It’s that simple! October Big Day runs from midnight to midnight in your local time zone. You don’t need to be a bird expert, or go out all day long. You can report birds from anywhere in the world—even 10 minutes in your backyard will help.
- Enter what you see and hear on eBird: You can enter your sightings online via the Atlas eBird portal or download the free eBird Mobile app to make submitting lists even easier. You’ll just need to select the Atlas portal in the app’s settings. Please enter your checklists before 13th October to be included in initial results announcements.
- Watch the sightings roll in: During the day, keep an eye on how the lists are growing in different parts of the world. Follow along with reports from more than 160 countries. Stats will be updated in real-time on the October Big Day page.
Kererū/New Zealand Pigeon | Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae | © Mark Fraser | Macaulay Library
Finding birds and keeping checklists is easy with the free eBird Mobile app. Download for iOS or Android.
October Big Day Pro Tips
- If you’re new to eBird or want to make your checklists more valuable for science and conservation, take our free eBird Essentials course and/or watch the Atlas webinars.
- Use Cornell Lab’s Merlin Bird ID app for help identifying tricky species by sight or sound, then use eBird to report them so your sightings are part of the October Big Day totals.
- Take photos and add them to your checklist—they might end up on the October Big Day page!
- Make sound recordings and prepare and upload your recordings to your eBird checklists to help Merlin identify more birds by sound.
- Make your sightings more valuable: submit complete checklists, keep counts of the birds that you see, and keep multiple checklists throughout the day as described in the Atlas Essentials Help Page.
- Share what you’re seeing on social media with #octoberbigday!
On October Big Day 2020, more than 32,000 participants submitted 80,400 checklists with 7,128 species. In New Zealand, birders contributed 650 checklists documenting 142 species, and we know that the Atlas community can contribute even more this year! No matter where you bird, have fun, stay safe, enjoy the birds you find, and share your sightings on eBird.
We hope you’ll be a part of a global birding team as well as the Atlas community.
Happy birding!