Central America

For the last five years, the biggest event in global birding—eBird’s Global Big Day—has seen a steady growth, especially in the number of people engaged. It’s that one day in May when birders of all skill sets—experts and beginners—go out and record the birds they see and hear. On May 9 this year, with the world in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic and opportunities to visit multiple locations limited for some, the global birding community still managed to detect 60% of all bird species on the planet—in a single day! Around 50,000 people submitted 117,000+ checklists worldwide, a new record for the eBird project.

Central America also set new records, with 7,000+ checklists submitted by 2,100+ eBirders, a 47% increase over the previous record in checklists! Of the 1,232 species ever recorded in eBird in Central America, 983 were detected on 9 May 2020. That’s 80% on a single day! Worldwide, five of the seven Central American countries ranked in the top 20 by species, and four ranked in the worldwide top 20 by checklists—no small feat for small countries! Panama, with a whopping 3,200+ checklists, was even fourth worldwide. Impressive!

9 May 2020 was also World Migratory Bird Day, an annual celebration of migratory birds, and an opportunity to raise awareness of the threats that migratory birds face across habitats and country borders. While the majority of Neotropical migrants that winter in Central America were already on their way north, many observers reported lingering migrants still.

The tremendous number of regional participants and checklists on this edition of the Global Big Day speak to the dedication of Central American birders to the eBird project, which have made it into the richest and most valuable dataset on distribution and abundance of the region’s birds. Effective bird conservation starts with solid data, and we are grateful for the wide support and commitment Central American birders have shown to that goal. Thank you for making Global Big Day, and eBird in general, into such a success. This would literally be impossible without you.

We also wish to thank Adopta Bosque and Panama Audubon in Panama, the Asociación Hondureña de Ornitología in Honduras, Community Cloud Forest Conservation in Guatemala, the Belize Birding Network and many other regional institutions and local bird clubs who helped turn Global Big Day in Central America into such a spectacular day.

Thank you!