So now you’ve read all about the Global Big Day effort this May 9th, and want to know more about how you can help and get others involved. We’re glad you’re interested, and we’ve got you covered! Here are some ways you can help get others interested and prepare to participate yourself.
Spread the Word
The first thing that you can do is to let people know! On May 9th, get outside, look at some birds, and submit them to eBird to benefit bird conservation. Doesn’t get much easier than that. But how do you spread this around?
- Bird Email Lists: Almost every state and province in the United States and Canada has its own birding email list. Internationally, many countries have developed their own birding community email lists, and these can consist of hundreds or even thousands of birders. If you don’t know if you have one in your area, Google your state/province/country and “birding email list” to find out!
- Local Organizations: Odds are that somewhere near you, there is a bird club, a bird conservation organization, or some other group of people into birds. Talk to them! Give them a call or drop by for a few minutes to show them how they can help on May 9th.
- Tell Your Friends: Get a group of friends interested, in fact, get all of them! You could either market it as a single team effort, where you go out in a group to see how many birds you can find on the Global Big Day, or create smaller teams for some friendly competition – who will see the most!?
Be Prepared
We all know that everything in life goes better if you’re prepared. Global Big Days are no exception. One of the aspects of birding that is both frustrating and exhilarating is how unpredictable birds are. This makes it hard when you want to see them all on the same day!
So how you can most effectively be sure that birds will be there when you want them to be? If you have a method to guarantee this 100% of the time, please let us know, cause we’re still looking. In the meantime, here are some tips and tricks to maximize your birding efforts, both on May 9th and beyond!
Scout It Out
The best way to know an area is to visit it. If you visit the same birding area over and over again, you’ll soon begin to recognize where each individual bird sings from, how often it sings, and how often it is there or not. Scouting is the most valuable way to understand a location and the birds to expect there; any internet sleuthing is no substitute for field experience. Go on out there and eBird what you see!
Team Sapsucker spends a full week scouting out the locations that they’ll visit before the big day itself. This means that this year Panama will be crawling with 5 frantic birdwatchers for 7 days, as we try to nail down the variability in the daily habits of hundreds of Panamanian bird species. Plus, we have a tremendous outpouring of help from Panamanians who will also be birding on the 9th of May.
Wherever you plan on covering for the Global Big Day, even if it is just your local park for 1 hour, it is still worth scouting! And really, why wouldn’t you want to scout? It is an excuse to get out birding, understand more fully the behavior of the birds in your area, and now also contribute to global bird conservation. You never know what you’ll find until you look! Honestly, in many ways the most enjoyable part of big days is the preparation leading up to it.
eBird Tools
If you can’t get out in the field to scout before the day, we’re sorry to hear that. But do not despair! eBird has many tools that can help you plan *almost* as though you did go birding.
- Explore A Region: Do you want to know what people are seeing in your area? This page can tell you the top Hotspots, the last place that a species was seen, and all recent visits by eBirders!
- Explore Hotspots: Ever wanted to know what areas around you have the most birds? Look no further! The interactive eBird Hotspot Map lets you view every eBird hotspot on a map, and shows you which areas have more species than others. Cool.
- Species Maps: So now you know what people are seeing in your area, and where certain places are that have lots of bird diversity. But what about that one species that you just really want to find? Wouldn’t you like to see every time it has ever been recorded by an eBirder, ever, displayed nicely on a map? We’d like that too, so we have this tool. You can filter by specific months, specific years, and by whatever species you choose out of the 10,404 species currently recognized by eBird.
How many of these species will you see on the Global Big Day?
Now you know Team Sapsucker’s Big Day secrets. Use them wisely. Armed with this knowledge, it is now up to all of us to go out together on May 9th and find as many species as we can to support bird conservation – a Global Big Day. Welcome to Team eBird!