Bring Your Binoculars: World Migratory Bird Day
World Migratory Bird Day and eBird's October Big Day both fall on Saturday 10 October. An easy reason to add a guided birding morning to autumn trips.
World Migratory Bird Day falls on Saturday 10 October 2026. The campaign marks it twice a year: in May and again in October, as migration peaks in each hemisphere. This year’s theme, “Every Bird Counts – Your Observations Matter!”, is about community science. Ordinary sightings logged in apps like eBird feed into research on population trends and the wetlands migratory birds depend on. The same Saturday is also eBird’s October Big Day, the global one-day count. Clients travelling this weekend have an easy reason to spend a morning out with a guide.
What the day highlights
The Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) and its partners chose nine ambassador species. Three of them show why sightings matter:
- Spoon-billed Sandpiper. A Critically Endangered shorebird with only about 350 to 550 left, CMS says. It breeds in Arctic Russia and winters along the coasts of South and Southeast Asia. More than 2,000 sightings have been sent to the species’ task force, and recording leg flags and rings helps refine population estimates.
- Barn Swallow. The North American Breeding Bird Survey estimates a decline of 38% to 44% since 1966, and of 68.6% in Canada between 1970 and 2019. The species is listed as Threatened under Canada’s Species at Risk Act.
- Abdim’s Stork. Volunteers in the Second Southern African Bird Atlas Project have logged 241 records of the species so far in 2026.
How travellers can take part
- Download eBird or Merlin before the trip. Logging a checklist on a nature walk counts.
- Report bands and flags. Note the colour and code of any leg flag or ring and submit it.
- Book a local guide on or around 10 October. Some parks run guided Big Day walks; Tennessee State Parks, for one, lists a 10 October event.
- Follow the method. CMS asks people to join established projects and use their protocols so the data is usable. The WMBD toolkit, in English, Spanish and French, explains how.
Plan it
- Who it suits: birders, families with curious kids and photographers.
- Where it fits: autumn trips to coastal wetlands, safari lodges in southern Africa and shorebird sites along the East Asian–Australasian Flyway.
- Next date: the spring World Migratory Bird Day is in May. Use it to plan migration-season trips for 2027.
- More: worldmigratorybirdday.org
Sources
- Convention on Migratory Species, ‘Community Science Takes Centre Stage on World Migratory Bird Day’, press release, 6 Oct 2026
- World Migratory Bird Day
- WMBD 2026 Campaign Toolkit
- Tennessee State Parks, Big Day 10 Oct 2026
- US Fish and Wildlife Service
- Vanguardia, October Big Day 10 Oct 2026
Catherine Crowe is Pacific Market Editor at Not An Atlas, leading our Australia and New Zealand coverage from just outside Wellington, on the southern coast of New Zealand's North Island, by way of Canada. A speech-language pathologist, mother and former model, she travels the way she listens: closely, and for the story underneath. She still writes on family and wellness travel, and the long-haul logistics of both.