Long-time birders may still think of this as “Big Day,” but International Migratory Bird Day has snowballed into a conservation initiative that brings awareness on conserving migratory birds and their habitats throughout the Western Hemisphere. It’s now coordinated by Environment for the Americas. It takes place on the second Saturday in May in the U.S. and Canada (and on the second Saturday of October in Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean).
Here in PA, it’s known as the Pennsylvania Annual Migration Count (PAMC), coordinated by the Pennsylvania Society of Ornithology. All the counties in our area have compilers for you to send your reports to. Here’s their contact information. As Blair County compiler Michael David explains,
This is a fairly unstructured event – simply go birding anywhere in the state on the 10th and, to the best of your ability, identify and count every bird you see. Record the time you started and stopped and how far you walked and drove and that’s it!