At A Glance

PROS:

• Very good image
• Good focus wheel movement
• Generous field of view
• Good close focus

CONS:

• Metal focus wheel can be slippery
• Loose eyecups and lens covers
• Eye relief on the low side

STATS:

• Price: $349.95 MSRP at press time. Prices often fluctuate, so check with retailers
• Close focus: 6.6 feet (200 cm)
• Field of view: Reported as 8.1° (425 feet at 1,000 yards). More about field of view 
• Weight: 26.9 oz (763 g)—that’s about 2.0 oz (57 g) heavier than the average for 8×42 binoculars in our review
• Eye relief: 15.0 mm

Viewing Experience: For birders looking for excellent image quality at a relatively low price, the Oberwerk Sport ED is an impressive option. These compact, slightly heavy binoculars got our reviewers’ attention with bright and very crisp images. The colors are true without seeming overly saturated. Even against the glare of a gray sky, we were impressed with the gradation of grays and tans in the fur of an eastern gray squirrel as it nibbled the vivid buds of a red maple. Similarly, American Robins gathering in a backlit tulip poplar showed warm orange bellies against a wintry glare, and the Oberwerks even brought out the matching warm brown tones of the tree’s conelike seed clusters. Image sharpness holds well at long distances—watching ducks on the far side of a large river, more than 1,200 feet (400 m) away, the white bars on the flanks of several Ring-necked Ducks were easy to make out. Looking high in the sky at a speck of an immature Bald Eagle circling with gulls, the brown-and-white mottling of the body and wings came through clearly.

Feel and Build: The binoculars themselves have a solid, sturdy feel, and this small company ships them out with a thank-you/inspection card hand-initialed, apparently, by the company owner. The basic olive-green armoring is enlivened by a crimson metal focus wheel and diopter ring. These have wide, rugged ridges for grip, though one reviewer found that the width of the ridges made the wheel slippery and a bit hard to adjust quickly. Once the fingers gain purchase, the focus wheel itself moves smoothly and precisely. Given Oberwerk’s impressive optics, the accessories didn’t quite measure up. The objective lens covers attach to the barrels very loosely, easily slipping up and down and even slipping off during normal use. The eyecups have a loose feel as they dial up and down, though they did not shift position once they were set. The binoculars come with two fairly narrow straps, one embroidered with the Oberwerk name and one made of a cushioned neoprene-like material.

This article is one in a series of mini-reviews. To see how these binoculars compare to others we’ve tested, see our full review of affordable 8×42 binoculars.  

We’re excited to offer this educational resource to ten lucky eBirders for free in thanks for their March eBirding. If you like taking part in the eBirder of the Month Challenges, here are even more excuses to motivate yourself to get out birding. Each month of 2024 will feature a different Bird Academy course offering—tune in at the start of April to see what’s on tap for next month.

The number of individuals observed is one of the most valuable aspects of your checklists. Reporting accurate counts helps researchers understand not just where birds are, but how many there are as well. This information is essential for tracking changes in bird populations over time! Check out our counting tips here.

Do I have to provide an exact count of every bird? We don’t expect you find and count every single bird around you. However, we do ask that you report your best estimate for every species you see or hear. For some species this may be an exact number. For large flocks, your best estimate might be to the nearest hundred—or thousand! Improve your counting skills with our recommendations for counting large flocks and counting birds at feeders. If you’re not sure which birds to count for your lists, read our best practices.

February’s winner will receive a new ZEISS SFL 8×40 binocular and will be notified by the 10th of the following month. Each month we will feature a new eBird challenge and set of selection criteria. Now is the time to start submitting lists for the 2024 Checklist-a-day Challenge!

ZEISS is a proven leader in sports optics and is the official optics sponsor for eBird. “We are thrilled to continue our partnership with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and support the vital scientific data being collected by dedicated eBirders.” – Richard Moncrief, Birding and Nature Observation Segment Manager at ZEISS

A great way to enjoy bird watching is by going to festivals—they’re organized to get you to great birding spots at a great time of year, and they’re a great way to meet people. Experts and locals help you see more birds, and you’ll meet other visitors who share your hobby. While you’re there, keep an eye out for Cornell Lab representatives, as we do attend several festivals each year.

To list your festival on this page, please contact our advertising manager:
Susanna Lawson
phone: 434-983-1771
fax: 434-983-1772
svl22@cornell.edu

Festivals by Location

See the map and listings, below, for upcoming festivals.

Peregrine Falcon by Marky Mutchler/Macaulay Library
Video Transcript
Spend time in your favorite places watching birds–then tell us about them! In as little as 15 minutes notice the birds around you. Identify them, count them, and submit them to help scientists better understand and protect birds around the world. If you already use eBird or Merlin, your submissions over the 4 days count towards GBBC.

Beyond the Backyard: All About the Great Backyard Bird Count Webinar
Tuesday, February 13, 1:00-2:00 p.m. Eastern
Get ready to flock together for the 2024 Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC)! Panelists will explain how to participate in this exciting global event and how participation might extend past your back door.

Register for Webinar
Other 2024 Webinars
Text written of GBBC by participant
Photo by Vindhya Sundar
Connect to Birds, to Nature, and with Each Other
Birds are everywhere, all the time, doing fascinating things. Join us, February 16–19, 2024, when the world comes together for the love of birds.

How to Participate
People birding around the world.
Photos clockwise from top left: Perla Laguna in Nicaragua, Lisa Burt in United States, Rofikul Islam in India, Pipope Panitchpakdi in Thailand.
Be Part of a Global Event
Watch observations roll in from around the world. Each submitted checklist becomes a glowing light on our bird sightings map.

Results from 2023 are inspiring.

Watch the World Map Light-Up
Explore 2023 Data
Tap or click the image to see Merlin and eBird submissions during the Great Backyard Bird Count on Saturday, February 19, 2022. Yellow dots indicate a checklist submission, which revert to a white dot in the background.
Showcase Your Photos from the Count
We enjoy seeing your pictures from the count. Share pictures of birds, yourself, and others birdwatching in your yards or at your favorite birding spots.

Learn How to Share Photos
Birds and people photos from GBBC 2023.
Photos clockwise from top left: Michael Laughlin in United States, White-capped Tanager by Ben Lucking in Ecuador, Rofikul Islam in India, Wild Turkey by Arun Manoharan in United States, Roxane Filion in Canada, Scarlet Robin by Cedric Bear in Australia, Perla Laguna in Nicaragua, Spotless Crake by JJ Harrison in Australia.
Map or Find Community Birding Events
Are you birding for GBBC as a part of a community event? Add it to the map so others can join you and so we have a better sense of how the world comes together to celebrate birds.

Looking to join a birding event for GBBC? Use the map to find events near you.

Add to the Map or Find an Event to Join

Events happen all over the world during GBBC.
Birding on a cold day in Canada
Paula Brown in Canada
We all need an incentive to get outside mid-winter and look for birds beyond what we can see from our windows. It’s fun to see the little flashes of light on the map when we submit our counts, among the thousands around the world, and we know our data matter.
Barb Gorges, Wyoming, United States

From the Winter 2024 issue of Living Bird magazine. Subscribe now.

In July 2023, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology community lost a dear friend and colleague when Tom Johnson passed away unexpectedly at the age of 35.

Tom’s extraordinary skills in photography, bird identification, and as a birding tour guide were driven by how much he loved being out in nature. Johnson generously contributed more than 10,000 photos, audio, and video recordings to the Cornell Lab over two decades, from his high school years through his 2010 graduation from Cornell University and beyond.

“Beyond his formidable skills and inspiring passion for birding, Tom was an even more outstanding person,” wrote Ian Owens, the executive director of the Cornell Lab. “His warmth, thoughtfulness, humility, and generosity of spirit made him an exemplary ambassador for birds and the natural world and a dear friend to many.”

An Eye for Beauty

“Tom had an easy, warm way about him, immediately making anyone he was with feel comfortable,” says Brian Sullivan, a Cornell Lab digital publications project leader and close friend of Johnson’s. “He had the kind of charisma that made others feel seen and heard. He would want us to keep seeing all the beauty around us—the heartbeat of the planet that he loved so much, the beauty that never escaped his eyes.” 

All photos are by Tom Johnson. Tap/click links to view larger photos via their Macaulay Library archive page.

Warblers in Flight

From an early age, Tom seemed to possess a natural gift for taking bird photos. By the time he was an undergraduate at Cornell, in the late 2000s, he was already capturing split-second flight shots of tiny birds on the move against a limitless sky. None were more impressive than his warbler photos, many of them taken at dawn from the observation platform at Higbee Beach in his beloved Cape May, New Jersey. For most of us, getting a well-lit, well-focused flight shot of any kind is cause for celebration; over the years Tom captured brilliant flight shots of well over 20 warbler species, including seldom-seen treasures like Cerulean, Connecticut, and Golden-winged Warblers.

Perhaps the single best illustration of Tom’s personality, talent, and dedication is a photo of a Prothonotary Warbler he found in the middle of the night on a ship south of Nantucket, Massachusetts. As noted on an eBird checklist from the day, Tom heard the bird’s chip note in his sleep and woke up at 2:30 a.m. Taking his camera along to investigate, he ended up capturing this dramatic flight shot, in near-complete darkness, miles from land.

A Connection With Seabirds

For several years after Tom’s graduation he served as a seabird observer on NOAA research ships—an opportunity to sharpen his formidable observational skills with some of the bird world’s most notorious identification challenges. Tom was nicknamed “Albatross” by his Field Guides colleagues, and his affinity for these wide-ranging, restless, and ineffably graceful creatures is clear from the images he brought home. A bird like a Southern Royal Albatross may seem large, but against the endless sweep of a gray ocean even this massive seabird is a challenge to capture in a camera frame.

Frontiers of Identification

Birding is about noticing details—it’s what brings a sense of discovery and possibility to every trip outside. Tom’s eye for detail was unparalleled, and his ability to key in on nearly invisible differences or irregularities meant he often noticed rare birds that others might have passed by. Imagine watching a swooping swallow and realizing it was not a Cliff Swallow, nor the similar Cave Swallow, but a hybrid of the two? Or standing on a beach in Nome, Alaska, and picking through a hundred White-winged Scoters to find five nearly identical Stejneger’s Scoters. Tom’s eBird checklist illustrates that finely tuned eye, noting the Stejneger’s different head shape, eye blaze, and flank color. (While also noting, with characteristic enthusiasm, that the sighting was “highly awesome.”)

A World of Ability

Tom spent nearly 10 years guiding birding tours for Field Guides, traveling to at least 15 countries on some 120 trips (read a remembrance from Field Guides). In his 35 years, he amassed a tremendous store of knowledge and experience that he shared with anyone in his warm and encouraging way.

“The fields of ornithology and birding combined have suffered a massive loss,” says Sullivan, “as Tom was one of the rare people who had the mix of skills needed to break down the boundaries between these two worlds—he deftly communicated the magic of birds and the power of science to anyone in his path.” Tom had a breadth of knowledge and enthusiasm that spanned from the tropics to the poles.

One of the great privileges of working at the Cornell Lab is the opportunity to spend time with so many talented young birders and ornithologists who come here to study. Tom was one of the very brightest, and we all assumed that we’d be learning from him for decades to come. We are grateful for the time we had with Tom, and we join with his family, friends, and the wider birding community in remembering his life.

Around 96 million people in the U.S. closely observed, fed, or photographed birds; visited public parks to view birds; or maintained plantings and natural areas around the home for the benefit of birds in 2022. That’s more than 35% of the nation’s population aged 16 and over.

The eye-popping figures come from the latest Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The estimated total number of birdwatchers is more than double the figure cited in the previous USFWS survey, conducted in 2016.

The report authors caution that survey numbers from 2016 and 2022 are not directly comparable, due to a change in methodology for the data collection. But the new survey results were released amid trending social media chatter and newspaper headlines that reflect a worldwide birding boom in the years since the Covid-19 outbreak in 2020. Cornell Lab of Ornithology participatory-science programs, like the Merlin Bird ID app and eBird, also reflect the heightened interest in avian affairs. For example, as of March 2023 there were more than 1.5 million active Merlin users in the U.S., a fivefold increase from the 300,000 Merlin users in March 2020. Likewise, eBird monthly checklist submissions have doubled, from 600,000 checklists in March 2020 to 1.3 million by May 2023.

The USFWS survey also shows that birding is big business. More than six out of every 10 dollars spent in 2022 on wildlife-related recreation (which also includes hunting and fishing) came from wildlife watching, with birds cited as the greatest focus for wildlife watchers. Altogether, wildlife watchers spent more than $250 billion last year to engage in their hobby—including more than $24 billion on equipment such as binoculars, cameras, and bird food—for an average of $2,188 per person.

Sometimes that spending can add up just by virtue of a single rare bird. A 2023 study published in the journal People and Nature documented that when a Steller’s Sea-Eagle showed up on the New England coast in the winter of 2021–22, eager birders pumped more than $750,000 into the economies of Maine and Massachusetts.

Amanda Rodewald, senior director of the Center for Avian Population Studies at the Cornell Lab, says the report is an important source of information to share with elected officials and shows just how many of their constituents care about the environment and conservation.

“It also underscores how wildlife, especially birds… are economic engines that sustain local, regional, and national economies,” says Rodewald. “Because so many birds are migratory… revenue [from wildlife-related recreation] in a given state may be linked to healthy environments elsewhere. For instance, ducks from the Prairie Pothole region fly to Arkansas, where hunters might pay to harvest them, or birders might travel and spend money to watch them.”

From the Winter 2024 issue of Living Bird magazine. Subscribe now. This story was adapted from a post on TWS Wildlife News, published by The Wildlife Society.

A study model that’s being called an avian version of the dating app Tinder is showing that giving females a bit of choice between prospective mates can drastically improve the output of a captive breeding program for a critically endangered species of Hawaiian honeycreeper.

“If we pair the female with the male that she spends more time with, we get more eggs at the end of the season,” said Alison Greggor, a researcher at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance.

Akikiki live only in the mountains on the island of Kauai, and only a few dozen remain in the wild, with extinction predicted within the next few years as wildlife managers struggle to find a way to stop the spread of malaria-carrying mosquitoes. In a last-ditch effort to save the species, wildlife managers from a multi-group partnership brought some Akikiki eggs into captivity in 2015. Given the low number of Akikiki left, scientists are looking for ways to improve the fertility of birds in captivity, with hopes of one day releasing them back into the wild.

Most research on captive breeding programs focuses on maximizing the genetic match between mates. But in a study published in the journal Conservation Science and Practice last March, Greggor and her colleagues examined whether allowing a female Akikiki to choose her mate would improve fertility.

The setup is like Tinder for birds: Instead of swiping left or right, the researchers put the female in an aviary in the middle, sandwiched by two enclosures with one male each on either side of her—she could choose the male on the right or the left.

At first, the researchers weren’t sure if they’d be able to tell the females’ preferences. They placed perches near the males on either side and watched, observing interactions like whether females would share food with one male over the other. They found that the female’s choice was best predicted by the male she spent more time next to. And by the end of the breeding season, the researchers found that females paired with their preferred mate would lay four to seven eggs on average, while the females with a nonpreferred male only laid two to three eggs.

“Quite a big difference,” Greggor said, and one that could bring a big boost for the captive breeding program. She points out that this kind of research demonstrates that successful breeding isn’t only about making a good genetic match, and that mate choice can play a large role “for improving breeding outcomes.”

From the Winter 2024 issue of Living Bird magazine. Subscribe now.

Recent research has uncovered an endangered Willow Flycatcher population’s ability to undergo genetic change in order to adapt to climate change.

In a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change last June, researchers documented a genome-wide shift within a population of Willow Flycatchers in San Diego, which scientists think has equipped the unassuming brownish-olive songbirds to better confront escalating wet and humid conditions in coastal southern California.

The Southwestern Willow Flycatcher has been federally protected under the Endangered Species Act since 1995. One of four subspecies of Willow Flycatcher, it has a range across seven states from Texas to California. Many Southwestern Willow Flycatchers in San Diego live in the wet willow thickets along the San Luis Rey River, an area that has experienced increased variability of precipitation patterns and a rise in temperature over the last few decades.

For the study, scientists studied 616 flycatcher specimens dating back to the early 1900s, including 23 specimens from the Cornell University Museum of Vertebrates. They found that the genetic structure of most Southwestern Willow Flycatchers has remained more or less unchanged outside of San Diego. However, when the team performed a whole-genome analysis of Southwestern Willow Flycatchers from San Diego, and compared it to San Diego flycatcher specimens from more than 100 years ago, they found that the present-day flycatchers have a higher prevalence of gene variants associated with adapting to wet and humid conditions.

According to Sheela Turbek, a postdoctoral fellow at Colorado State University and lead author on the study, this genetic change likely stems from interbreeding with other Willow Flycatcher populations. At some point over the past century, Willow Flycatchers from across the Southwest and from the Pacific Northwest (a separate subspecies) have exchanged genetic material with Willow Flycatchers in San Diego. This mixing with neighboring populations introduced new genetic material into Southwestern Willow Flycatchers breeding in San Diego and may have facilitated an evolutionary response to climate change that shows up in the genome of modern-day San Diego birds.

Leonardo Campagna, an ornithologist who was not involved with this research, says that the findings from this paper demonstrate why it’s important to preserve large and interconnected populations of any organism.

“The best way to do that is to protect habitat and the movement of individuals across the landscape,” says Campagna, who is assistant director of the Fuller Evolutionary Biology Program at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. “Large healthy populations will harbor more genetic variation, and therefore be well equipped to respond to natural selection and adapt in the direction they may need to go.”

From the Winter 2024 issue of Living Bird magazine. Subscribe now.

Kristen Heath-Acre lives in Columbia, Missouri, which officially has a sister-city relationship with Hakusan City, Japan.

But Heath-Acre, the state ornithologist for the Missouri Department of Conservation, says she feels more of a sister-city connection to the town of Santa Marta and the mountain forests near the coast of northern Colombia. Because by looking at a new set of maps produced using eBird data—called eBird Shared Stewardship Maps—Heath-Acre can see that Missouri has a special connection with the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, as the winter home of Cerulean Warblers and other migratory songbirds that breed in the Show-Me State.

According to Heath-Acre, recognizing those special migratory-bird connections between places in the north and south is a key to effective conservation for these species that fly up and down the hemisphere.

“Birds on the whole are disappearing. Their populations are declining,” she says. “And so if we are trying to support birds on the whole here in the U.S., we have to look at their whole life cycle, what’s happening throughout the year.”

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology produced these data-driven maps in collaboration with Partners in Flight, a consortium of bird-conservation scientists in the Western Hemisphere. Increasingly, scientists are emphasizing the importance of full life-cycle conservation—preserving and protecting the habitat that a migratory bird needs for both its breeding and nonbreeding periods.

Visualizing Where “Our” Birds Go When They Leave

“We often think of birds as belonging to our states, or belonging to where they are when they’re breeding,” says Sarah Kendrick, a migratory bird biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “But really, we’re only hosting these birds for a few months of the year. They’re pretty much tropical birds.”

For example, eBird data show that a Cerulean Warbler in Missouri’s Ozarks has a breeding window of about 49 days before preparing for migration. But almost half of that bird’s year—an estimated 149 days—is spent in Colombia during the nonbreeding period.

“We share those migratory bird populations with our conservation partners across the hemisphere,” says Kendrick. “And we know that they’re facing major threats throughout that full year. These eBird stewardship maps help to paint that picture in a really cool visual way, of where our shared birds are traveling beyond our borders.”

The maps are powered by a dataset that consists of 44 million eBird checklists submitted by birders from 14 million locations throughout the Western Hemisphere from 2007 to 2021.

“It’s a lot of data, and basically we can see each species observation in each checklist as a data point,” says Archie Jiang, the Cornell Lab computer programmer who generated the Shared Stewardship Maps. Jiang graduated from Cornell University in May 2023 as a computer science major, and he was an officer in the Cornell Birding Club as an undergrad. “We have this space and time data of where people are observing birds, and this is the raw data that we’re working with.”

Jiang fed modeled eBird data into a sophisticated program (developed by Cornell Lab data scientist Matt Strimas- Mackey) that identified places where migratory birds are concentrated in the nonbreeding season. He then weighted those results by the proportion of bird breeding populations that occur within a targeted state or region, essentially highlighting parts of the map where those birds go on migration. For example, he found that Black-throated Blue Warblers that breed in New York State show a very strong migratory connection to overwintering grounds in Jamaica.

Shared Stewardship Maps

West coast: Linkages for 48 Breeding Species

Rufous Hummingbirds connect the West Coast with Mexico City. In an Indigenous community just south of Mexico City, the Brigada de Monitoreo Biológico Milpa Alta of San Pablo Oztotepec is working to restore subalpine grasslands. This area acts as a year-round refuge for the endemic, endangered Sierra Madre Sparrow, as well as an important overwintering area for Rufous Hummingbirds for 100 days of their nonbreeding season. Urban sprawl threatens the area, but local Indigenous leaders are driving efforts to study, conserve, and sustain the biocultural heritage of their people and their land. 

Midwest: Linkages for 84 Breeding Species

Spotted Sandpipers Connect the Midwest with the Peruvian Coast. All along the Pacific Coast of South America, the nonprofit science group Center for Ornithology and Biodiversity (aka CORBIDI by its Spanish acronym) is working to monitor and protect areas for shorebirds. CORBIDI scientists organize shorebird surveys along the Peruvian coast every four years and load their data into eBird. Their survey data was recently used to nominate and gain government protections for an area of mangroves in northern Peru that had been identified as an important area for Spotted Sandpipers and other shorebirds. 

Northeast: Linkages for 74 Breeding Species

Rose-breasted Grosbeaks Connect the Northeast With the Ecuadorean Andes. Within the Choco Andino Biosphere region, the Mashpi Chocolate farm is regenerating forest that provides food and acts as nonbreeding-season habitat for migratory songbirds such as Rose-breasted Grosbeaks. More than 80% of the farm’s 140 acres have been restored to forest, with more than 200 bird species counted in the latest survey. The farm’s sustainable cacao production carries a Garantía Agroecológica certification—meaning no chemical pesticides or fertilizers are used in producing Mashpi’s fine artisanal chocolate and cocoa delicacies.

Methods Summary: eBird Shared Stewardship Maps with uniqueness nonbreeding connections are generated by calculating the sum of nonbreeding bird abundance in each 3×3 km grid cell for all migratory bird species that breed within a focal region, then weighting by the percent of each species’ breeding population in the focal region. The results are then divided by the total sum of stewardship connections for all regions in the U.S. to emphasize the uniqueness of shared stewardship connections for a particular focal region.

“Birds are one of the things that can link us across large spatial scales,” says Cornell Lab quantitative applied ecologist Andrew Stillman. “These connections have existed for thousands and thousands of years, but they’re really hard to understand. They’re invisible.”

Stillman says that in recent decades, the advent of radio- and GPS-tag tracking technologies allowed scientists to get a glimpse of these migratory connections between places; put a tag on a bird, track it as it flies south, and see where it spends the winter.

But while tracking tags are good for studying individual birds, they can’t yield data that’s useful at the scale of entire populations.

“The ideal information [for conservation scientists] would be if we put a tag on every single, stinking bird in the entire U.S., but we can’t do that,” Stillman says. “These eBird Shared Stewardship Maps provide us with baseline information at the species level.”

Deb Hahn, the international relations director at the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, is putting those eBird maps to good use. Hahn directs the Southern Wings initiative, a partnership of state agencies that connects states with conservation groups in Latin America. Hahn says the eBird Shared Stewardship Maps are extremely valuable in her efforts to show the biological connection between areas in the U.S. and areas south of the border, as she facilitates full life-cycle conservation projects for migratory birds.

“The stewardship maps can help a state agency get a sense of … what areas might be a great place for them to invest in to have more impact on the greatest number of species,” Hahn says.

Through Southern Wings, 41 state agencies have donated nearly $3.9 million to projects in 11 countries in Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean. Hahn thinks the eBird maps will stimulate more such cross-border conservation.

“Having the maps helps us make a stronger case for the need to put conservation dollars in specific areas,” she says.

Importantly, say Cornell Lab scientists, these maps should set the stage for true collaboration between conservation biologists in the U.S. and Latin America.

Setting the Stage for Collaboration

“Ideally, we’re looking at these maps together. That’s really the whole idea behind shared stewardship,” says Viviana Ruiz Gutierrez, a native of Costa Rica who’s the director of conservation science at the Cornell Lab. “It’s not to try to impose a point of view or priority, but it’s more to know where to look for partners and contribute to conservation efforts that are already on the ground in Latin America.”

For example, when the Missouri Department of Conservation wanted to enhance the effectiveness of their conservation funding to turn around declining populations of long-distance migratory birds such as Wood Thrush (a state-designated Species of Greatest Conservation Need), they looked to Latin America—via Southern Wings—to partner up with the Colombian conservation group SELVA.

“SELVA’s recent research on migratory birds has seen huge benefit from cross-border collaboration with U.S. and Canadian government agencies,” says Camila Gómez, a director at SELVA. “These funds go a really long way in Latin America. They have served to employ and build capacity of local researchers, implement research and conservation activities on the ground, and highlight the importance of broad international collaborations to guarantee migratory bird welfare throughout their annual cycle.”

Heath-Acre says she’s proud that Missouri was a leader in the paradigm shift toward full life-cycle conservation.

“These birds don’t realize these borders exist,” she says. “I think Missouri has done a really good job of following the birds where they go, providing funding and support for research where these birds are going.”

According to Sarah Kendrick of the USFWS, the eBird Shared Stewardship Maps could be a catalyst for ramping up full life-cycle conservation efforts. And that’s desperately needed, as U.S. federal and state agencies work to turn around a massive 26% loss among all Neotropical migratory bird populations since 1970, according to research published in Science in 2019.

Says Kendrick, “If we’re not addressing the threats that these birds face when they’re beyond our borders, we’re not doing all we can.”