Dear Friends of Bird Conservation,

We are well on our way towards our fundraising goal of $20,000 to provide travel scholarships for Caribbean wildlife students and professionals to attend our upcoming American Ornithological Society (AOS) & BirdsCaribbean Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico, from June 27-July 2, 2022! A huge THANK YOU to everyone that has donated so far!!!

Attending the conference is an invaluable opportunity for participants to gain new skills to address threats to bird conservation on their respective islands, network with the wider conservation community, share their work, and learn from others. For Caribbean students, this experience will help to kickstart their introduction into the ornithological and conservation community and they will benefit from mentorship opportunities.

Our plan is to raise funds to help cover travel costs that will allow all deserving participants to attend the Conference, including covering registration, airfare and/or hotel costs as necessary. 

We need your help to do this - please help us get over the finish line and reach our goal of $20,000.

As with everything in the Caribbean we will be successful when our whole community pitches in, so let’s do this together. We know we can count on you to help! Thank you for your support!

P.S.The insular Caribbean is a critical region for birds. There are 171 species that occur there and nowhere else in the world! In addition, the islands provide a winter home for numerous migrants—many stay 6 months or longer while others rely on the islands as stopover sites to rest and refuel during their long journeys north and south. The development of a strong regional conservation community, through capacity-building training and career development opportunities at the island level for local people, is critical to ensure the sustainable preservation of island birds and their habitats.
 

Global Big Day Update

THANK YOU for helping us to make Global Big Day—May 14, 2022— another amazing day of birdwatching, reconnecting with nature and each other, and raising funds to help build skills of young Caribbean conservationists. Together we raised over $13,000 — more than 65% of our total fundraising goal!!

Check out the preliminary stats from this year’s competition! This year we had 16 teams participating. Checklists are still being entered into eBird, but the Bee Hummers Dream Team has the early lead for most species seen by a team and the most checklists! We will publish final results with lots more fun summary stats and awards soon! 

If you did not get a chance to donate, it's not too late! This donation page will remain open until our AOS-BC Conference in June as we continue to raise funds to support as many deserving Caribbean nationals as possible with travel scholarships. Please continue to share the page and encourage your friends, family and networks to donate.

Join the birding fun and help us raise funds to build conservation capacity in the Caribbean!

It’s that time of year again! BirdsCaribbean is putting on its annual Global Big Day fundraiser on May 14th. This year, we are raising funds to provide travel scholarships for Caribbean nationals to attend the AOS & BC Joint Conference in Puerto Rico this June. It's an invaluable opportunity for international networking and learning new skills to help save our Caribbean birds!

We will be bringing back our popular teams competition this year, celebrating the energy, excitement, and camaraderie associated with Global Big Day. Last year was a resounding success, with 15 teams from 36 countries identifying 1,348 species and raising over $20,000 for our Caribbean Motus program. Let’s make this year even better!

WHAT IS GLOBAL BIG DAY?
Twice a year, during peak migration times (once in spring and once in fall) birders around the world go out (often in small groups) and travel around an area trying to observe as many bird species as they can in a 24-hr period of time. The checklists that the global community collects and submit to eBird are hugely valuable for science and conservation!

BirdsCaribbean virtual teams will bird “together” and engage in friendly competition to see which team can: 1) collectively see the most species of birds on GBD, and 2) raise the most funds. You can join/re-join one of the 15 teams from last year or create a new team!

GET INVOLVED BY:

1. Creating or joining a birding and fundraising team by clicking the JOIN A TEAM button below the Global Big Day graphic on this page.

Once on a team, help fundraise by inviting family, friends, colleagues, or members of your birding community to join your team and/or donate to your team.

and/or . . .

2. Donating to one or more of the birding and fundraising teams. Simply click the yellow donate button at the top of the page and you can specify if you want your donation to go to the general campaign or to a particular team (all funds go to the same cause but teams are competing to raise the most funds).

and/or . . .

3. Committing to spending some time (or the entire day!) birding on Global Big Day (May 14), being sure to keep track of what you see at each site and then entering that information into eBird or eBird Caribbean.

You can bird from your backyard for as little as 10 minutes, or visit sites throughout the day to see as many birds as you can. By being on a team, your observations will contribute to that team’s total list for the day. Who will win top prizes this year for most species seen and most checklists submitted and most endemics seen?! Someone needs to contest the Bee Hummers Dream Team, who cleaned up last year!

Everyone should plan to submit their observations to eBird (or eBird Caribbean). Then we'll tally them up and see how we all did! We will send out more information about this as the event draws closer. See guidelines here for how to participate in our Global Big Day of birding on Saturday May 14th.

PRIZES WILL BE AWARDED TO:

(1) the team that raises the most funds
(2) the person and team that sees the most bird species on Global Big Day
(3) the team that sees the most endemic species on Global Big Day
(4) the "country/island team" that sees the highest proportion of their birds on Global Big Day (to control for differences in the number of species on each island!)
(5) the team with the best "find" of the day (unusual, rare, plumage aberration, etc.)
(6) the team with the best bird photo of the day (must be posted on eBird along with your list)
And others TBD!

This will be a fun event to fundraise for and get excited about! Be ready to go birdwatching for as much of the day as possible, knowing that all of your teammates, friends, and BirdsCaribbean community members are doing the same!

WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT
The insular Caribbean is a critical region for birds. There are 171 species that occur here and nowhere else in the world! In addition, the islands provide a winter home for numerous migrants—many stay 6 months or longer while others rely on the islands as stopover sites to rest and refuel during their long journeys north and south.

Developing a strong regional conservation community, through capacity-building training and career development opportunities at the island level for local people, is critical to ensuring the long-term preservation of Caribbean birds and their habitats.

HOW YOUR GIFT WILL BE USED

This year, we are fundraising to help cover conference costs for Caribbean wildlife students and professionals to attend our upcoming AOS & BC Conference, June 27-July 2, 2022, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Attending the conference allows participants to build upon or gain new skills to address threats to bird conservation on their respective islands. It’s also an invaluable opportunity to network with the wider conservation community, share their work, and learn from others. For Caribbean students, this experience will help to kickstart their introduction into the ornithological and conservation community and they will benefit from mentorship opportunities.

Our plan is to raise funds to help cover travel costs that will allow all deserving participants to attend, including covering registration, airfare and/or hotel costs as necessary. We need your help to do this!

As with everything in the Caribbean we will be successful when our whole community pitches in, so let’s do this together. We know we can count on you to help!

*NOTE: Since our Cuban colleagues, very sadly, are unable to attend the conference this June because it’s in the U.S., any money the Cuban team raises will go towards installing Motus stations in Cuba – plans are in the works for this!

Safety:
While COVID is decreasing in some islands and more and more people are getting vaccinated, it’s still important to be cautious. Be sure to choose birding locations that (1) comply with your municipality’s COVID-19 safety guidelines (i.e. social distancing, wearing a mask, and travel guidelines), and (2) comply with your personal safety preferences. And so whether you will be birding at local parks, reserves, wetlands, beaches, neighborhood or backyard, we will all be enjoying the opportunity to distract ourselves with some safe, fun birdwatching. Additionally, we will all be birdwatching “together” for a great cause that unites us!

Summary Reports from our Past Global Big Day Fundraisers

Global Bird Day 2021: A Record Breaker for BirdsCaribbean!

Brought Together by Birding—Virtually: Global Big Day Connects Us in the Caribbean and Beyond