On Saturday, May 8th, birders and BirdsCaribbean members around the world went outside birding to celebrate Global Big Day—the biggest birding day of the year which is timed to coincide with peak spring migration for many places in the USA. Approximately 53,000 participants joined in the fun—with 365 observers representing the West Indies and submitting 1,995 checklists—way to go!

This year, observers found 364 species in the West Indies—beating last year’s record by a whopping 19 species! (see Figure 1). Cuba clinched the lead for most species seen—161, followed by Puerto Rico at 139 species, The Bahamas coming in hot at 131 species, Dominican Republic close behind at 127 species, Jamaica swinging in at a nice 104, and Cayman islands finishing with a solid tally of 94 species.

And more Caribbean “eBirders” too…

The number of eBird observers in the West Indies—365—increased by 62 persons from 2020, and the total number of checklists submitted—1,670—increased by a colossal 619! (see Figure 1). This jump in participation helped fuel the increased number of species seen in every country/ island.

Inspired by last year, many of us continued to bird together from afar on teams that raised funds for bird conservation. This year, those funds will target new Motus bird monitoring stations in the Caribbean. Our Global Big Day was hugely successful on all  fronts, with 15 teams participating, including 10 national teams!!! (up from 7 teams in 2020). And we raised $19,113 USD, very close to our goal of $20,000 USD—congrats and thank you to everyone for your participation and support! Read on for all the exciting details and final team stats…

The Bee Hummers Mighty Achievements – Congratulations to our Cuban Friends!

How did our BirdsCaribbean teams fare? Once again, the indomitable, multinational Flying Pintails, led by Executive Director Lisa Sorenson, claimed the title for the most species observed: 714 (see Figure 2). President’s Perch, led by Past President Andrew Dobson, and the Bee Hummers Dream Team, the Cuban national team led by BC board member Maikel Cañizares, came in second and third with 597 and 465 species seen, respectively. The Bee Hummers swept three other categories, however, with the most eBird checklists (241), most eBird observers (65), and most West Indies endemics (48). Congrats to the team named after the smallest bird in the world for all of these great achievements!!!

Tracking the Endemics on our GBD Teams

This year, with our 10 new national (Caribbean country or island) teams, we were excited to see which national team would see the highest proportion of their endemic birds on Global Big Day (a category created to control for differences in the number of endemic species on each island – see Figure 3). There were two winners for this title: the One Love Jamaica Birders, whose well-organized sub-teams and individuals fanned out over the entire island and managed to see all 28 Jamaican endemics, and the Bajan Birders who also worked hard and made sure to get their one endemic (Barbados Bullfinch) on their lists! 😉 The Peeping Cuckoos (Puerto Rico), Bee Hummers (Cuba), and Team Jaragua (Dominican Republic) also did well finding their island endemics.

Small was Beautiful

Smaller and more local teams also had their advantages. When the total number of species seen was divided by the number of people on the team, Far Flung Flock came in first, with an average of 27 species observed per person (see Figure 4). The Statia Tropicbirders were a close second with 23 species per person, followed by the Flying Pintails (19), Abaco Island Big Day Birders (17),  WANSIRI (16), and Turks and Caicos Island Blue Jays (14). The accomplishment of the Abaco Island Big Day Birders is especially impressive, since this was a small team of 5 persons birding on a relatively small island that had been largely decimated by a hurricane less than 2 years ago!

Congratulations and thank you to all the teams for your enthusiastic participation. We will be sharing more about our experiences, including photos and prizes, in a second Global Big Day 2021 blog article.

Handing out Bouquets to these eBirders

The most distinguished eBirders from our Global Big Day campaign were Holly Garrod and Josh Covill (birding together in Costa Rica) of the Flying Pintails, who over 16 hours recorded an incredible 208 species! Richard Korpi and Phil Lehman, both on the Barefoot Bobwhites team, came in 2nd and 3rd with 138 and 136 species, respectively.  Holly and Josh both win a year’s membership in BirdsCaribbean and some awesome BC swag!

Special commendations go out to the following birders who had 20 or more West Indies Endemics on their GBD checklist on May 8th:

Maria Paulino (Dominican Republic) – 30
Lyndon Johnson (Jamaica) – 27
Wendy Lee (Jamaica) – 27
Adrian Cobas (Cuba) – 26
Ana M. Suárez (Cuba) – 25
Maikel Cañizares Morera (Cuba) – 24
Miguel Landestoy (Dominican Republic) – 23
Tania Piñeiro (Cuba) – 23
Alina Perez (Cuba) – 22
Wayne Arendt (Puerto Rico) – 22
Noelia Nieves (Puerto Rico) – 21
Robert Jovel (Cuba) – 21
Wisdenilde Navarro (Cuba) – 21
Alondra Medina Charriez (Cuba) – 21
Karlos Ross (Cuba) – 20

An Exciting Finish to our Fundraising, and Thank You!

After the success of last year’s fundraiser we have carried the tradition onward. This year’s donations will help fund our newly launched Caribbean Motus Collaboration, which is part of our Caribbean Landbird Monitoring network.

The final days of our fundraiser were incredible! We were still a ways out from our target goal of $20K when a most generous BirdsCaribbean member on the President’s Perch team stepped up and offered a $5K match. In other words, if the President’s Perch Team could raise $5K in 3 days, the donor would match it with a donation of $5K, giving us the opportunity to double the funds!

We quickly put out the call and many generous people answered it! With a few hours to spare before the deadline, we reached the $5K goal on President’s Perch team, which was then promptly doubled by our generous supporter! Thus, to date, thanks to your generous donations and support we have raised a total of $19,113, which will help to install at least 4 Motus stations in the islands!!! (note: it is not too late to donate if you want to help us reach our $20K goal).

2021 BirdsCaribbean Global Big Day Teams*

You can visit each birding team’s page profile on eBird to see maps of the team’s  countries/ islands where birds were sighted and their checklists. You can also visit each team’s GoFundMe page and donate to specific teams to help them reach their fundraising goal, or donate to the general campaign.

Abaco Island Big Day Birders
*Abaco Island, Bahamas
Team Leader: Chris Johnson
eBird team page

WANSIRI
*Northern Venezuela
Team Leader: Josmar Marguez
eBird team page

Team Jaragua
*Dominican Republic
Team leader: Yolanda León
eBird team page

TCI Blue Jays
*Turks and Caicos Islands
Team Leader: Simon Busuttil
eBird team page

Statia Tropicbirders
*St. Eustatius
Team Leader: Hannah Madden
eBird team page

Bajan Birders
*Barbados
Team Leader: Julian Moore
eBird team page

One Love Jamaica Birders
*Jamaica
Team Leader: Keisha Miller
eBird team page

Grand Bahama Island Birders
*The Bahamas
Team Leaders: Delores Kellman and Erika Gates
eBird team page

Bee Hummers Dream Team
*Cuba
Team Leader: Maikel Cañizares
eBird team page

Cayman Birding
*Cayman Islands
Team Leader: Kelsey Rae-Smith
eBird team page

Barefooted Bobwhites
Team Leader: Justin Proctor
eBird team page

Peeping Cuckoos (Bobos Mirones)
*Puerto Rico
Team Leader: Gabriel Lugo
eBird team page

Far Flung Flock of Friends
Team Leader: Natasha Atkins
eBird team page

President’s Perch
Team Leader: Andrew Dobson
eBird team page

Flying Pintails
Team Leader: Lisa Sorenson
eBird team page

* These are national teams – please support them, and THANK YOU!!