Around 200 migratory bird species are known to visit the Caribbean each year, either to spend the winter or as a stage on their journey. Less is known about the relative abundance of these birds, or their distribution within the Caribbean.

A new project, Conserving Important Bird Areas for Neotropical Migratory Birds in the Caribbean, will collate information on migrant birds and ensure that the sites they use are adequately covered by the IBA network. The information will be drawn from published and unpublished sources, including BirdLife's World Bird Database, monitoring initiatives in different Caribbean countries, birdwatchers' notes and tour company reports. The project is supported by the US Fish and Wildlife Service under the Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act.

The information together with visual resources such as photographs will be made available online, where it can be updated, shared and discussed with groups like BirdsCaribbean (Yahoo).