Celebrating IMBD in the Caribbean - THE POWER OF PARTNERSHIPS
The long journeys that migratory birds take each year are truly amazing. These birds, like our endemics and residents, are part of our natural heritage and it is up to us to conserve the habitats they need to feed and rest during winter or their long migrations. We encourage all of you to celebrate IMBD in your own country, as you have celebrated the Caribbean Endemic Bird Festival with great success for many years now. Materials available to help celebrate include two posters, Migratory Birds of the West Indies colouring book, stickers, tattoos, bird buddie bracelets and t-shirts.
The “official” date for IMBD in the Caribbean is the second Saturday of October, which this year falls on October 9th. You can celebrate the festival at any time in the Fall that is convenient for you, although we encourage October because this is peak migration period. The activity or activities can be very simple, for example, organizing a "Welcome Home Migrants" birdwatching walk or a presentation on migratory birds, or more involved like organizing a display, art or photo competition, radio quiz, wetland or beach clean-up, tree planting event, etc.
Twenty species of birds (~5 are common or occur in most Caribbean islands) illustrate the conservation theme and represent species that benefit from partnerships and depend on our support to help their populations in the years to come.
There are numerous examples of partnerships in the Caribbean (national, regional and international) that have helped conserve species such as the Cahow (Bermuda Petrel), White-crowned Pigeon, Grenada Hook-billed Kite, Puerto Rican Nightjar, Bicknell’s Thrush, Rose-throated Parrot, Hispaniolan Parrot, Puerto Rican Parrot, Black-capped Petrel, Kirtland’s Warbler, Grenada Dove, Ridgeway’s Hawk, Montserrat Oriole, Piping Plover, Trinidad Piping Guan, West Indian Whistling-Duck, and many more.
This is an opportunity to recognize these conservation successes and the organizations, institutions, agencies, and individuals that worked together to make the conservation happen. Many ideas for celebrating this theme are available at the IMBD website: www.birdday.org. We encourage you to adopt this theme if it works for you and adapt it to celebrate your own partnerships and conservation achievements.
Last spring we distributed to CEBF/IMBD coordinators a number of IMBD materials that we received from Sue Bonfield (posters, stickers, tattoos, Bird Buddy Bracelets, and T-shirts). We hope that you have reserved some of these materials to celebrate IMBD.
We hope that you can participate in this great international event! Please let me know if you have any questions (Anthony Levesque). We look forward to hearing about your festival activities.
Materials available for 2010
IMBD Press Release for 2010 - Click here to read it on the web, click here to download it in Word!
Caribbean IMBD Poster with Peregrine Falcon as the "flagship" species - click here to see the poster! Contact Anthony Levesque if you would like to receive copies of the poster - let him know how many copies and what language (English, Spanish or French).
Migratory Birds of the Caribbean Colouring Book - NEW!!! - featuring 41 beautiful drawings of migratory birds that occur in the Caribbean along with brief text about each species. See images of the colouring book covers and sample drawings on our Caribbean Bird Festivals Facebook page. To purchase individual copies, click here. A limited number of colouring books are available for free to our Caribbean partners doing outreach and education, for more information, please contact Lisa Sorenson. At the moment the book is only available in English; we are are working on the Spanish version and are seeking funding to print the book in Spanish and French. If you would like to help sponsor this colouring book, please contact Lisa Sorenson.
Visit us on our Facebook pages, Caribbean Bird Festivals - CEBF & IMBD and Caribbean Birds - SCSCB! Choose "Like" to keep up with our latest news.
NEW! - click here to listen to a wonderful radio interview of Leo Douglas, SCSCB Media Relations Officer, about IMBD in the Caribbean. The interview is on Observer Radio in Antigua; it was organized by the Environmental Awareness Group of Antigua and Barbuda.
Thanks to Sue Bonfield, IMBD Coordinator, for help with the following materials:
Ideas for fun activities that especially emphasize the Power of Partnerships theme and migration can be found in Wondrous West Indian Wetlands: Teachers Resource Book: Activity 5-E – Bouncing Back, Activity 5-B – Be an Activitist, Activity 4-F – Migration Stories, Activity 4-G – Migration Headache.
The above materials are free but you will need to pay shipping costs. Visit www.birdday.org for more downloadable fact sheets and ideas about this theme (English and Spanish) from International Migratory Bird Day.
T-shirts! The t-shirts have striking artwork from the poster on the front and back. We have customized the t-shirts for the Caribbean by adding CEBF and SCSCB logos underneath the artwork (in addition to the Environment for the Americas logo). With this design, we can celebrate CEBF in the spring and IMBD in October with the same shirt. Groups can add their logo to the back but there will be an extra charge of $40 for this (set-up fee). A few free t-shirts have already been sent to local coordinators in participating countries. The cost for extra t-shirts is $8.50 each plus shipping. You can sell the t-shirts to raise money for your organization or give them away to participants, use them as prizes, etc.
Visit www.birdday.org for more resources and ideas about this theme (English and Spanish) from International Migratory Bird Day.
Will your country be celebrating? Please let us know!
Confirm your interest of coordinating festival activities in your country this year by e-mail (Anthony Levesque) and let me know as soon as possible about your plans so that a regional list of activities can be prepared. Please also share your ideas for activities to celebrate our “power of partnerships” theme. We will be posting a list of these ideas on the IMBD webpages. If your country celebrated last year and the local coordinator has changed, and you know his or her e-mail, I would appreciate your help with this information. If you know of additional groups that would like to join the festival, please send me their contact information (name and email address) so that I can communicate with them.
Coordinators: Please register your festival events on the IMBD Explorer's Map - this way, if folks are visiting the islands or learn about the festival from our various media outlets (website, press releases, article in LIAT's in-flight magazine Zing, etc.) and want to attend an event, then they can find one.
If you are looking to participate in an IMBD event in your country, please check the Explorer's map or contact one of the coordinators listed here.
For more information please contact Anthony Levesque, Caribbean IMBD Coordinator, SCSCB.
Visit the CEBF webpages for more ideas on celebrating the festival - click here.
International Migratory Bird Day 2009 webpages - click here.
International Migratory Bird Day 2008 webpages - click here.
Learn about the amazing migration of Whimbrels, tracked by satellite, to the Caribbean - click here and here.
