Thank you for participating in Birdathon and Birdathon Art and Photo 2020!

This Spring we joined Denman Conservancy in a fun, safe, family-friendly competition: Salish Sea Birdathon 2020, a 24-hour event, beginning at 4 pm on Friday, May 22nd and ending at 4 pm on Saturday the 23rd.

We will be sharing the winners soon!

WHAT: This is one event where we can self - isolate without being socially isolated.  The birds are on their way (some are already here) . . . all we need now are the birders. And if you're not a birder yet, you will be soon. Every few days we'll share Ken's info about a bird that is singing in our woods right now. You can then check out the bird's song on the amazing Dendroica website, and head outside to listen for it. What else is there to do these days?

WHEN: It is a 24-hour event, beginning at 4 pm on Friday, May 22nd and ending at 4 pm on Saturday the 23rd. Participants are free to identify birds for as many (or as few) hours as they wish. Keeners will scour the island; others will just cast an occasional glance out to their bird-feeder. 

HOW: The rules are simple: do the BIRDATHON on your own or make up a team.  Ask your friends and/or neighbours to sponsor your birding effortsbased on the number of bird species you identify (or a flat donation sum). Download a pledge form here. Then simply collect the pledges and send the money to CHI via their Trees 4 Tomorrow  online donation form, or ask your sponsors to submit their donations.  All money raised on Hornby will go to Conservancy Hornby Island for its Trees 4 Tomorrow campaign ( the 2 most serious threats to birds and other species are habitat destruction and climate change.)

In the spirit of the inter-island competition, there will be prizes for

1) Most money raised for conservation (per capita)
2) Most bird species identified overall on the islands
3) Also a special prize for most species identified by a team or individual who doesn't use fossil fuels in their transport

Please join us in the BIRDATHON! You do not need to be an expert. If you can tell a Raven from a Flamingo you are good to go. As a famous birder said, “A good birder is someone who likes looking at birds. A great birder is someone who really likes looking at birds.”

The match is on, Hornby!

EDUCATE YOURSELF!

We’ve created a Salish Sea Bird page for you to Listen, Look, and Learn, and are posting every other day on our Facebook page with a bird, and a message from Mr. Madsen.

Many thanks to Ken Madsen and Erika Bland of Denman Conservancy Association for the inspiration and bird ID info!

ART COMPETITION

Birdathon 2020 has photography and art components; we invite everyone to participate. We want to encourage artists and photographers of all skills to have fun with this. The contest will not be judged on technical skill, but rather qualities like energy, heart and  humour.

There will be cool prizes, and although they don’t know it yet, we will ask the people on the daily bird song list to be our judges.

ART CATEGORY: you can paint, draw, sculpt, weave, whatever. Mixed media is great. There will be a kids division  and an over-12- years-old  division, although that age cut off is not firm. You can choose which contest to enter.

PHOTOGRAPHY CATEGORY: We are looking for the bird in the most interesting pose.

HOW TO ENTER:

1. Email your photos and pictures of your completed art to dcalandmanager@gmail.com

2. Post your photograph or image of you artwork to social media and tag @conservancyhornbyisland using the hashtag #BirdathonArt2020

The contest will end on May 22, but if you send your art in before the end of April, it could be displayed as part of the Birdathon Art Show that will be up at the General Store in May on Denman.

GET CREATIVE!