taken from
http://ebird.org/content/ebird/news/gbd17results/
Global Big Day 2017: birding’s biggest day ever
17 May 2017
Birds are inspiring creatures. Their amazing migrations and behaviors capture our imagination, and their global presence lets us appreciate them wherever we are in the world. The power that birds have to bring people together across cultures, languages, and international borders is truly exceptional. Global Big Day is the realization of the magic of birds—a single day where the birding world unites in a shared pursuit, seeking to answer the simple question: how many birds can be seen in one day?
On 13 May 2017, almost 20,000 birders from 150 countries around the world joined together as a global team, contributing more than 50,000 checklists containing 6,564 species—more than 60% of the world’s birds. This is a new record for the number of bird species reported in a single day, and it’s thanks to you. From Antarctica to Zimbabwe, your contributions make this possible.
For us, Global Big Day is a celebration of birds. By bringing people together, Global Big Day showcases the great birds from each region—helping bring awareness to birding and conservation regionally and globally. This year (as in previous Global Big Days), the friendly competition in South America continued to evolve as an inspiring story, with four countries topping 1,000 for the single-day tally: Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, and Colombia. In past years Brazil and Peru had always vied for the #1 slot for species totals, and in 2017 we have a new champion: Colombia.
With 1,486 species on a single day, the organization and passion of the Global Big Day Colombia team was truly impressive, reporting almost 2,500 complete checklists—and close to 15% of the world’s birds—from a single country, on one day! Global Big Day in Colombia was genuinely a grassroots effort, with hundreds of individuals coming together from throughout the country. Groups of youth birders took to local parks, and far-ranging diehards visited remote places to target specific species, calling back their sightings to friends since they didn’t have any way to get to the internet. Congratulations Colombianos.
Peru (1,338), Ecuador (1,259), and Brazil (1,079) were not far behind, and their contributions include large numbers of specialties that are either endemic to their country or were species that are not easily found elsewhere. South America’s amazing total of 2797 shows just how many birds were tallied as thousands of birders in each of these countries celebrated their continent’s remarkable avian diversity on this single day. See more in our South America summary below.
Watch continued real-time Global Big Day updates and full totals here. Sightings will keep coming in during the coming days and months, so these totals will do nothing but increase. Want to see how all of the countries compare? Check it out here. See below for regional Global Big Day highlights.