10/04/2026
OCTOBER BIG DAY COMING UP
October Big Day, that participatory day of birds and birding, will be on Saturday 10 October. This annual event is becoming for many a bird-watching highlight of the fall, marking a day of community birding around the world. Wherever you are on 10 October, you can simply take a few minutes to enjoy birds and share what you find. You can participate from anywhere, even from home!
Last October, participants from 196 nations around the world reported seeing a record 7,990 species of birds during a single day of observing. There were 900,000 observers united for a single day of activity. Can that number be surpassed, making this year the first October Big Day with more than a million people engaged?
Wherever you are that day, you can plan to enjoy a bit of birding for 20 minutes or 20 hours to identify and count all the birds you find. Then share your results on eBird.
You can find details here:
https://ebird.org/news/october-big-day-2026
and here:
https://ebird.org/octoberbigday?continue
BOOK REVIEW: WATERFOWL CHRONICLES
We now have a serious recounting of the near-half century of vital waterfowl-and-wetland conservation in Michael G. Anderson’s The North American Waterfowl Management Plan – Building a Continental Conservation Partnership (2026, Routledge, 317pp). It’s a narrative on the problems, processes, and people that combined – beginning in the early 1980s – to address the uncertain state of waterfowl conservation in the U.S. and Canada.
Addressing that crisis – characterized by drought, wetland loss, and waterfowl decline - would build upon the foundation of waterfowl and habitat conservation originating in the 1930s and 1940s. It was, of course, an essential base, but it was not fully equipped to address a set of new problems. Teams in the U.S. and Canada had already gathered to find solutions to the losses in waterfowl and habitats, and by the mid-1980s they had an initial landmark plan (North American Waterfowl Management Plan – NAWMP) that was, in Andersons’s words, visionary, expansive, and… unfunded.
But by last year – six plans later – with over 260 million acres conserved via different strategies, waterfowl could rank among the healthiest bird populations on the continent. Yet Anderson reminds us that the work is never finished and that new problems constantly arise.
Anderson’s regular profiles of key players in this bird conservation drama – profiles individually scattered throughout the book – are important “for the record,” describing the work of key bird conservationists still with us and those who have departed, but all who made significant contributions to the ongoing conservation drama.
The book is not always an exciting page-turner, but patient readers will be rewarded with important lessons and meaningful history, mostly depending on what previous knowledge is brought to the subject.
You might be particularly interested in Chapter 2 on crucial start of NAWMP and the birth-pangs of the planning process. Chapter 10 may motivate you most, on the “Habitat Joint Ventures for Other Birds,” and the partnerships and initiatives for “more than ducks.” Chapter 11 on the importance of the 1994 NAWMP vision, may catch your eye, with the inclusion of Mexico in the partnership. Even if you pick-and-chose your reading in this book, on the evolution of NAWMP and the decadal problems addressed and solved, the last chapter – Chapter 24 – on “Lessons Learned, Opportunities Ahead” is essential to take seriously.
Anderson admits that the final chapter may be seen as a “love letter to the Plan Community,” reviewing the people, the birds, the funding, and the acres conserved. But it is also a sober evaluation of accomplishments and new openings.
If anything, reading this book - The North American Waterfowl Management Plan – Building a Continental Conservation Partnership - might convince some conservation practitioners that the work’s title and subtitle might have just as easily have been swapped to read, Building a Continental Conservation Partnership - The North American Waterfowl Management Plan.
No matter. There are lessons and history and food-for-thought aplenty in this book.
YELLOW-BELLIED FLYCATCHER: HOW OLD?
Operating one of the busiest banding stations for landbirds in North America, the Black Swamp Bird Observatory (BSBO) research team at Navarre Marsh near the western end of Lake Eire is always ready for a potential surprise. One morning last month presented just such an occasion at this Ohio migrant hot-spot.
Retrieving a Yellow-bellied Flycatcher from the mist-net that morning revealed that the bird had already been banded. In searching through banding records, this very same Yellow-bellied Flycatcher had initially been banded at Navarre Marsh in May 2018 as an “after-hatching year” bird. This meant that it had already hatched by 2017, making it at least nine years old last month.
The previous North American Bird Banding Program longevity record for Yellow-bellied Flycatcher was 6 years 0 months. This bird had surpassed that record by more than three years, which made this compact little migrant the oldest banded Yellow-bellied Flycatcher ever recorded!
Considering the additional fact that this species is a long-distance migrant - nesting in bogs, swamps, and coniferous woods across much of Canada, New England, and some of the Great Lake states, while wintering in eastern and southern Mexico and Central America – makes the banding surprise even more remarkable. Review the range of Yellow-bellied Flycatcher here:
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Yellow-bellied_Flycatcher/maps-range
You can read the report on this individual bird here:
https://www.bsbo.org/bsbo-research-blog/a-record-setting-flycatcher
IBA NEWS: A NEW WHSRN SITE
El Salvador has a large and significant coastal bay and estuary site at the Jiquilisco Bay located in the department of Usulután. The site already has Important Bird Area (IBA) status and was also designated a Ramsar Wetland of International Importance in 2005 and a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 2007. This area protects a mosaic of mangroves, estuaries, canals, lagoons, beaches, and islands that provide critical feeding, nesting, and migration habitats for shorebirds, long-legged waders, gulls, and pelicans, among other birds.
Last month, the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network (WHSRN) welcomed the Bahía Jiquilisco Complex as El Salvador's very first WHSRN site - WHSRN Site 128 - designated under the “Regional Importance” category.
The complex covers approximately 156,900 acres of coastal wetlands, including mangrove forests, estuaries, intertidal flats, and sandy beaches. It was specifically chosen for its importance to Wilson's Plover, with 1,015 individuals recorded in 2022, representing 3.47% of the species' estimated global population and exceeding the WHSRN threshold for the status of Regional Importance. Many other shorebird species use the site, including Marbled Godwit, Wilson’s Phalarope, Semipalmated Plover, and Least, Semipalmated, and Western Sandpipers.
These are all species that nest in North America, and that is one reason why drawing attention to this WHISRN designation is significant. Moreover, the new WHSRN status can help highlight the added value of this already-designated IBA site.
For more details on the WHSRN designation, see here:
https://whsrn.org/bahia-jiquilisco-becomes-el-salvadors-first-whsrn-site/
and here:
https://whsrn.org/whsrn_sites/bahia-jiquilisco-complex/
For additional information about worldwide IBA programs, including those in the U.S., check the National Audubon Society's informative Important Bird Area program web site at:
https://www.audubon.org/important-bird-areas
“PL
Identifying, monitoring, and protecting the most important places for birds in the United States
