Each October, hundreds of thousands of people around the world count birds during the height of fall migration, and post their bird checklists on eBird as part of a birding Big Day. October 10th is this year’s October Big Day.
Big Day is sponsored by CornellLab and eBird is the global platform for sharing bird observations. Last October’s Big Day was extraordinarily successful, with nearly 900,000 participants via both eBird and Merlin setting a new benchmark for collective birding action by submitting over 122,000 checklists that reported 2.1 million individual bird observations covering 7,962 species. It was a record-breaking day and this year’s October Big Day could be even bigger.
Anyone can participate in October Big Day. There is no fee. You just need an eBird account. To get started, check out eBird’s October Big Day page, https://ebird.org/news/october-big-day-2026 There you’ll find out more about October Big Day, including how to get an eBird account so that you can prepare to join other birders around the world in the fun of sharing your bird observations. By taking part in October Big Day, you are also celebrating World Migratory Bird Day.
You can help make the 2026 October Big Day bigger than ever, and at the same time help scientists learn more about birds to improve their conservation efforts. On October 10th, join birders around the world to observe the birds we love and to share our observations on October Big Day.
Tom Reynolds
