What is World Migratory Bird Day?
World Migratory Bird Day (WMBD) was initiated in 2006 and is a global awareness-raising campaign highlighting the need for the protection of migratory birds and their habitats. On the second weekend each May, people around the world take action and organise public events such as bird festivals, education programmes and birdwatching excursions to celebrate World Migratory Bird Day.
World Migratory Bird Day activities take place in many different countries and places, but are all linked through a single global campaign and theme. Anyone interested in organising an event to mark World Migratory Bird Day can do so and is encouraged to register their planned activity on this website. In this way, individual events can be shared with others around the world and help inspire them to get involved.
Every year WMBD focuses on a different topic; this year’s theme is “Barriers to Migration” - highlighting the many man-made obstacles birds face during their migration.
To learn more about this year's THEME and about HOW YOU CAN PARTICIPATE in World Migratory Bird Day 2009 please follow the links below:
>How can you participate?
>"Barriers to Migration" - learn more about this year's theme!
>A short history of WMBD - how it all began & past events
How it all began
World Migratory Bird Day was initiated by the African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbird Agreement (AEWA) Secretariat in collaboration with the Secretariat of the Convention on Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) in 2006.
Originally, the idea of designating a day for migratory birds arose in the United States in 1993, when the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center and the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology initiated celebrations of the ‘International Migratory Bird Day' (IMBD), which encourages bird festivals and education programmes across the United States and other parts of America. Although this day continues to be successfully celebrated in the western hemisphere, something similar was missing for the rest of the world.
On the occasion of its 10th anniversary in 2005, the African-Eurasian Waterbird Agreement (UNEP/AEWA) - a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) administered environmental treaty, initiated the Migratory Waterbird Days (MWD) which were held in Africa, Europe and parts of Asia. As this event was well received in the African-Eurasian region, the idea arose to broaden the scope into a commemorative day which celebrates the phenomenon of migration and all migrating birds, including waterbirds on a global scale.
Hence, the very first World Migratory Bird Day was launched by AEWA and CMS on the weekend of 8-9 April 2006 on Ms. Kuki Gallmann’s famous wildlife reserve ‘Ole Ari Nyiro’ in Laikipia, Kenya. The central launching event called WINGS was inspired by the phenomenon of bird migration and was attended by a number of international personalities from the worlds of art, business and conservation. (see the video on the right)
Since then, World Migratory Bird Day (WMBD) has been celebrated in increasing number of countries and has steadily grown in popularity each year. While the annual WMBD campaigns are prepared and coordinated centrally by the AEWA and CMS Secretariats, national authorities and NGOs worldwide, in particular BirdLife International and its partners, help to encourage individuals and organisations around the world to celebrate World Migratory Bird Day and to incorporate each year's theme into their awareness-raising programmes and festivals.
Through the help of thousands of committed individuals, organisations and government authorities - World Migratory Bird Day has turned into a truly global commemorative event, which helps turn the world's attention to the wonders of bird migration and the need for their conservation in a concentrated and global scale each year.
WMBD 2006
The first World migratory Bird Day took place on 8-9 April, 2006. At the time, migratory birds were receiving very negative media coverage as a result of them being falsely believed to be the main cause for the spread of Avian Influenza (H5N1) around the world. So the idea arose to use the first World Migratory Bird Day to counter some of the negative and often unbalanced publicity migratory birds were receiving at the peak of the Avian Influenza discussion. For this reason the theme of the first World Migratory Bird Day in 2006 became: “Migratory birds need our support now!”. The center of the campaign was a launching event called WINGS which took place on the edge of the Great Rift Valley in Kenya and was hosted by Ms. Kuki Gallman, a famous writer and conservationist. Altogether, 68 other WMBD related events took place in all corners of the world to support the launch and the very first WMBD campaign.
WMBD 2007
In 2007, World Migratory Bird Day was celebrated in more than 58 countries and with more than 100 different events all across the planet on 12-13 May. The central theme “Migratory birds in a changing climate” helped to focus the world’s attention on the plight migratory birds are facing due to global warming. WMBD activities highlighted the effects that increasing temperatures, altered rainfall and vacillating weather conditions have on migratory birds.
WMBD 2008
Under the theme “Migratory Birds – Ambassadors for Biodiversity”, World Migratory Bird Day (WMBD) was celebrated for the third time on 10-11 May 2008. Over 136 activities took place in 59 countries around the world to mark World Migratory Bird Day in 2008 and the events helped spread the idea of migratory birds as messengers for the conservation of biodiversity worldwide.
What are Migratory Birds?
>What are migratory birds?
>The symbolic meaning of birds and their journeys
>Why migratory birds need to be protected
What are migratory birds? Avian migration is a natural process, whereby different birds fly over distances of hundreds and thousands of kilometres in order to find the best ecological conditions and habitats for feeding, breeding and raising their young. When the conditions at breeding sites become unfavourable due to low temperatures, migratory birds fly to regions where conditions are better.
There are many different migration patterns. The majority of birds migrate from northern breeding areas in the summer, to southern wintering grounds. However, some birds breed in southern parts of Africa and migrate to northern wintering grounds, or horizontally, to enjoy the milder coastal climates in winter. Other birds migrate in terms of altitude, moving higher up a mountain in summer, and residing on lowlands during the winter months. Migratory birds have the perfect morphology and physiology that enables them to fly fast and across long distances. However, their journey is often an exhausting one during which they go to their limits. The Red Knot for example, a 24 cm long wader weighing of around 220 g, breeds in Siberia and overwinters on the west coast of Africa, some of its number even going down to South Africa. During its migration it loses nearly half of its body weight.
Migratory birds therefore rarely fly to their destination non-stop but interrupt their journey frequently to rest and feed, or to sit out a spell of bad weather. Exactly how migrating birds find their flyways is not fully understood. Recent experiments indicate that they orientate along the Earth's magnetic field via special light receptors located in their eyes.
The symbolic meaning of birds and their journeys
Humans have always been fascinated and inspired by the phenomenon of bird migration. In ancient Greece the bird of Athena represented the renewal of life. A dove, with an olive branch in its beak, returned to Noah's ark to announce the end of the deadly flood. The dove has remained a symbol of peace and hope. During the era of the Pharaohs in Egypt, the falcon had protective powers and was linked to royalty. For the Native Americans birds had different meanings, but always positive and linked to the concepts of unity, freedom, community, safe return, love and celebration of life.
In dreams birds embody fantasy, ideas and thoughts. The image of a flying bird is immediately connected with lightness and freedom, hence the expression “free as a bird”. Many people associate flocks of migrating birds in the typical V-like alignment with the change of season, but also with perfection, beauty and harmony. Until the 18th century people believed that swallows sank in mires at the beginning of autumn and appeared again as amphibians in the following spring. And still today some parents mark their houses with painted storks to indicate that a new baby has been born.
In almost all cultures, flocks of birds have announced the arrival of spring for centuries, and the yearly rebirth of nature associated with it. The social acceptance of birds as messengers of life was accompanied by the knowledge that migration had an important role to play in ecosystem function.
Why migratory birds need to be protected
Many bird species migrate in order to survive. However, migration is a perilous journey and involves a wide range of threats. Only a small number of birds are actually threatened by natural events. Sad but true, human activities are the source for most dangers migrating birds are exposed to. And as diverse as people and their habits in different countries are, so are threats the birds face.
The loss of habitats due to pollution or exploitation caused by encroachment for settlement, agriculture, grazing etc. is the main threat migrating birds face, as they are dependent on finding suitable breeding and wintering grounds as well as stopover sites along their flyways where they can rest and feed. The loss of any of these sites used by the birds during their annual cycle could have a dramatic impact on the birds’ chances of survival. Also, high-voltage power lines and wind turbines have a dramatic impact on birds, which are in danger of being killed by electrocution or collision. Poaching remains widely practised in countries where people are highly dependent on biodiversity for their livelihoods.
These are only a few examples and often a substantial decrease in population numbers within a species is the result of a combination of such factors. It is therefore hard to identify which individual factor poses the greatest threat.
Flying over long distances involves the crossing many international borders and entering different political areas with their own environmental politics, legislation and conservation measures. It is evident that international cooperation between governments, NGOs and other stakeholders is required along the entire flyway of a species in order to share knowledge and to coordinate conservation efforts.
Without national and international cooperation all measures taken to tackle the threats to migratory birds in one country could be in vain if for example unsustainable taking is accepted in another country. The necessary legal framework and coordinating instruments for such international cooperation is provided by international agreements such as CMS and AEWA.
World Migratory Bird Day has a global outreach and is an effective tool for the international community to help raise awareness on the threats faced by migratory birds, their ecological importance, and the need for international cooperation to conservation them.
"Barriers to migration" - WMBD theme for 2009
Year by year in autumn and spring majestic avian flocks depart for their long journeys following the call of the wild and paths of their ancestors. For some, it is a long, exhaustive and dangerous journey, sometimes stretching thousands of kilometers from the Arctic to the southern tip of Africa and beyond. Migratory birds have to cope with a scarcity of food, stopover sites that are shrinking in area, predators, hostile weather and the expanse of seas, huge mountains and endless deserts. Yet, humans have created additional obstacles to further complicate their journeys.
Dazzling spotlights from city skyscrapers, tall glass windows and guy wires of television towers can be invisible to birds and cause collisions that result in bird fatalities. Proliferating communication towers and masts, wind turbines, tall buildings, power lines, and fences kill or harm huge numbers of birds each year and represent increasingly fatal barriers which have a detrimental impact on entire populations of migratory birds.
Although kills like these are often unintended and frequently avoidable - thousands of new structures are built each year, often along the migration paths of migratory birds. Many of the world's coastlines and mountaintops, utilized for the generation of wind power, reside along some of the world's best known and major migration routes. New wind turbine developments are still being planned around the world, sometimes without a detailed assessment having been carried out on the potential environmental impacts they may cause , let alone the effect they could have on migratory birds.
The aim of World Migratory Bird Day (WMBD) 2009 is to raise awareness on some of these man-made barriers to migration and to inform people about the impact these structures can have on migratory birds and on their migration. A "truly green" development in renewable energy, architecture and urban planning is one, which aims to minimize all possible environmental impacts, including those on migratory birds and other species.
Learn more about some of the man-made "Barriers to migration":
>Communication towers and masts
>Windows and tall buildings
>Wind turbines Power lines Light
>Pollution Burdening factors
>Possible solutions
This day is for the birds: World Migratory Bird Day!
From the very beginning World Migratory Bird Day has been a tremendous success worldwide. Each year since 2006, the total number of registered WMBD events has steadily increased along with the number of countries in which WMBD celebrations have taken place. In 2008 alone, a total of 136 registered events took place in 59 different countries - every single one is unique in its own way and as diverse and creative as the people and organisations involved.
WMBD activities take place in many different places, both indoors and outdoors. Schools, parks, big town halls, education centres and nature reserves are all places where events have been hosted in the past. These can vary from bird watching tours and educational workshops to dramas, festivals, exhibitions, painting competitions and other awareness raising activities.
Events organised to mark World Migratory Bird Day usually take place on the second weekend of May. United by a common theme and campaign they have literally taken place in all corners of the world and have involved and inspired hundreds, if not thousands of people of all ages.
Get inspired by past WMBD events
To help you get some ideas for your own upcoming WMBD 2009 event, we have picked out a few past events which we would like to share with you. While it is only a small selection from a long list of exciting events which have been registered on the WMBD website over the past three years, we hope that these examples will inspire you to get involved in WMBD this year and help you plan your own unique WMBD event for the weekend of 9-10 May.
To become a part of this year's campaign - please make sure to register your own activity for WMBD 2009 on this website! Kenya The central launching event of the very first World Migratory Bird Day in 2006 named ‘WINGS’ took place on the edge of the Great Rift Valley in
Kenya.
This impressive artistic show reflected the symbolic value of birds and their historic and cultural significance to humans. More than 200 representatives from all over the world as well as artists from Turkey, India, Peru, Italy, Kenya, Germany and the USA joined this magnificent event.
Malaysia
For WMBD 2008, the Malaysian Nature Society Miri Branch invited the bird photographer and birdwatching specialist Choo Tse Chien to Miri. Over the course of 4 days, the special guest gave presentations on migratory birds with a particular focus on the avian biodiversity of Malaysia. He also revealed some secrets of bird photography and led bird watching trips. The events targeted pupils and the general public. The audience had a chance to see a professional at work and obtain a true birdwatching experience.
Cameroon
In 2008, a dedicated group from the Cameroon Biodiversity Conservation Society (CBCS) favoured an educational activity as a means to promote the idea of migratory birds as ambassadors for biodiversity. Over four days, CBCS worked closely with pupils from five secondary schools, local NGOs and local media, presenting the concept of migration, providing information on African flyways and distributing WMBD materials. In addition, birdwatching activities were organized, which helped revise the inventory of bird species for the areas of Yaounde and Bamenda.
Israel
To commemorate World Migratory Bird Day 2008, the Israeli Nature & Parks Authority organised a fascinating event in the Beit-Govrin National Park. Over 1500 people, mainly families, enjoyed an opportunity to observe the migration of White Storks and listen to presentations on conservation efforts of migratory species and the threats migratory birds are exposed to. In addition, the public was able to watch the release of several rehabilitated migratory birds such as Black Kites, White Storks and Eurasian Bee-eaters.
Argentina
In 2008 more than 500 students in Argentina had the chance to attend presentations on the topic ‘Migratory Birds – Ambassadors for Biodiversity’ at the Interpretation Center and Bird’s Observatory "Vuelo Latitud 40" in Argentina in April and May 2008. Each group received a WMBD poster and a selection of the other promotional materials and were encouraged to spread the message of WMBD 2008 to their classmates, families and friends.
Iran
World Migratory Bird Day was celebrated at the Shidvar Island in the Hormozgan Province of Iran for the first time in 2008. Under the patronage of the local Environmental Department, students were involved in drawing competitions combined with presentations on migratory birds and their habitats. A special birdwatching event was organised with local media covering the campaign. Also, a special brochure was designed and published to celebrate WMBD 2008.
Germany
The International Wadden Sea School provided children with the opportunity to play the "Wader Migration Game", a 2 hour educational activity, designed to inform them about migratory birds and the Wadden Sea ecosystem as a stopping place on the East-Atlantic flyway in the form of a game. In the role of a wader chick, the children experienced the adventure of migration and discovered the importance of undisturbed feeding and resting grounds along the flyway. Birdwatching activities completed the programme. Every participant received a "logbook" of the journey to take home.
Bangladesh
In Dhaka, a discussion meeting on "Migratory Birds of Bangladesh in a Changing Climate" was held on 13 May 2007. This meeting was organised to build awareness and to reach students and teachers with the message of the day and to heighten awareness on the issue. Another event in the port city Chittagong included: guided bird watches, bird identifications, and special events for children like face painting.
India
During WMDB in 2007 several activities were organised especially for schoolchildren in Ladakh, India. On 12 May a drawing and painting competition was organised on the theme “Migratory Birds in Changing Climate”, and on 13 May a symposium on “Climate Change Impact on Migratory Birds” took place. In addition to these activities, a poster produced specifically for the event was released on that weekend.
Benin
The NGO Eco-Ecolo in Contonou conducted several educational activities in the wetlands for pupils from nearby schools. In addition to talks and discussions on the topic “Migratory Birds in a Changing Climate” for children, a symbolic planting of trees took place. Have these activities fired your imagination? Then help to make WMBD 2009 an extra- special day around the world with lots of fun and celebration! Let the birds inspire your imagination to take flight and help you create your own WMBD 2009 event! Join us and register your activity now!
Sources:
http://www.worldmigratorybirdday.org/2009/
http://www.worldmigratorybirdday.org/2009/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=19&Itemid=32
http://www.worldmigratorybirdday.org/2009/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20&Itemid=70
http://www.worldmigratorybirdday.org/2009/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=42&Itemid=72
http://www.worldmigratorybirdday.org/2009/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13&Itemid=26
http://www.worldmigratorybirdday.org/2009/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=21&Itemid=35