Calling all Birders: It’s time to get ready for Birdathon 2021!

Photo: Camilla Cerea

How does it work? Like a walk-a-thon, Birdathon participants collect pledges from friends and family via our website. Then participants record how many species they can identify during any 24-hour period between April 16 and May 16. The more species they identify, the more funds they raise! 

Birdathon helps ASNV continue to support outdoor education, citizen science and habitat conservation, and encourage people to plant native plants and foster native wildlife. Birdathon also helps ornithologists better understand spring migration by reporting sightings through eBird, an online database of bird observations run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

All birding levels are welcome. Participants can bird alone or form teams of up to five. All team members donate and/or secure pledges. Participants solicit general donations or ask for pledges based on the number of species or the number of individual birds sighted. Sightings and donations are due no later than June 3, 2021. Report your Birdathon sightings on eBird and email your list to info@audubonva.org.

Ready to get started? Register your team here and check out our Birdathon rules here. Now go out and have a great day birding! 

All participants and their supporters are invited to join us via Zoom on Sunday, June 6 at 2:30 PM for our Annual Meeting, where we’ll announce the winners of the “Most Species Counted,” “Most Money Raised” and “Youth Birder” competitions. Our speaker that day will be Dr. David Luther of George Mason University, who will speak about the impact of noise on bird song.