The Birds of World Migratory Bird Day 2026
This year, World Migratory Bird Day highlights birds from around the world to celebrate the 2026 theme: “Every Bird Counts – Your Observations Matter!”. Learn how these species contribute to our understanding of migratory patterns and connect with communities across the globe. In collaboration with the United Nations Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species, the African Eurasian Waterbird Agreement, and the East Asian Australasian Flyway Partnership, we have selected species found not only in the Americas Flyways but also across Europe, Africa, and Asia. Each species represents the importance of community science and local observations in tracking, protecting, and conserving birds worldwide.
Cinnamon Teal
The Cinnamon Teal (Spatula cyanoptera) is a small duck best known for the male’s rich, reddish-brown plumage. Females are more subtly colored, providing camouflage during nesting. This species is closely tied to freshwater wetland habitats, where it feeds on aquatic plants and invertebrates.
Cinnamon Teals breed in shallow freshwater wetlands across the western United States, particularly in the Great Basin and Intermountain West. During winter, they migrate south along the Pacific and Central Flyways, with large numbers spending the season in California’s Central Valley, Mexico, and parts of Central America. A separate population lives year-round in South America.
Threats to the Cinnamon Teal
Cinnamon Teal populations are declining primarily due to the loss and degradation of wetland habitats. Agricultural expansion, water diversion, and industrial development have reduced the availability and quality of the shallow wetlands the species depends on for feeding and breeding.
In addition to wetlands, Cinnamon Teals rely on healthy grasslands and dense vegetation near water for nesting. The conversion of these surrounding landscapes further threatens their reproductive success, making habitat conservation essential for the species’ long-term survival.
Community Science Projects that Benefit the Cinnamon Teal
Hunters are important for improving our understanding of the health of Cinnamon Teal populations and other duck species. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service monitors migratory game bird harvests nationwide, and hunters contribute information through the Harvest Information Program. This data enables biologists to track population trends, assess habitat conditions, and make informed conservation and management decisions that benefit waterfowl and the ecosystems they depend on.
Call to Action
You can contribute to duck surveys by getting Harvest Information Program certified when buying your hunting license. Even if you don’t hunt, purchasing a Duck Stamp helps to support the protection of habitat for waterfowl. These efforts help biologists track populations, set hunting seasons, and conserve waterfowl.
Merlin
The Merlin (Falco columbarius) is a small but powerful falcon, once commonly called the “pigeon hawk” because its swift flight can resemble that of a pigeon. Renowned for its speed and agility, the Merlin hunts by flying low and fast to surprise small birds, which make up most of its diet. Adult males are typically dark blue-gray, while females and juveniles are larger and darker brown, providing effective camouflage.
Merlins breed in the northern forests of North America and Eurasia. During winter, many migrate south along major flyways, reaching the southern United States, Mexico, and even northern South America.
Threats to the Merlin
Merlin populations declined dramatically in the mid-20th century due to the widespread use of pesticides such as DDT, which caused eggshell thinning and reproductive failure. Following the ban of DDT, Merlin numbers have rebounded in many areas.
Despite this recovery, Merlins still face ongoing threats. Habitat loss and fragmentation reduce suitable breeding and hunting areas, and collisions with vehicles and windows are an increasing concern, particularly as Merlins adapt to living near towns and cities.
Community Science that Benefits the Merlin
There are many global, national, and local projects that gather information about raptors. In North America, the Hawk Migration Association documents birds of prey present during the winter months. The survey allows participants to record observations regardless of their experience level.The data are shared with researchers, land managers, planning agencies, and regional birding groups to support conservation and management efforts. Just as importantly, the program is designed to be engaging and rewarding, offering participants a community science experience while contributing to raptor conservation. Hawk Mountain provides information about raptor migration watchsites from Mexico to South America. Visitors are encouraged to visit migration sites and support the research.
Call to Action
Hawk migration surveys are hosted by organizations around the world. By visiting these sites, you can build your raptor identification skills while contributing valuable data to ongoing counts and even starting your own survey route. You can also support these efforts by getting involved, sharing your enthusiasm, and helping inspire others. Look for a survey site near you and join the effort.
Ruby-throated Hummingbird
The Ruby-throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris) weighs about as much as a U.S. penny and can beat its wings up to 53 times per second. The male is easiest to identify, with its brilliant, iridescent red throat. Found across eastern North America, it spends summers breeding in gardens, forests, and meadows before migrating as far south as Central America for the winter—often crossing the Gulf of Mexico in a single, nonstop flight. Feeding on nectar and small insects, this species plays an important role in pollination.
Threats to the Ruby-throated Hummingbird
While Ruby-throated Hummingbird populations are generally considered stable, data from the past decade indicate a modest decline. The causes are not yet fully understood, but likely include a combination of habitat loss, declining insect populations, intensive agricultural practices, collisions with pane glass and the growing impacts of climate change.
Community Science that Benefits the Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Tracking migratory hummingbirds on local, national, and international levels through Journey North and Operation RubyThroat provides valuable insights into their arrival and departure dates, as well as the key foraging stops along their journey. You may even identify the plants in your garden or community that hummingbirds forage on to increase our knowledge of which flowers are important to sustaining them as they migrate. Unfortunately, hummingbirds are also one of the bird groups most often affected by collisions with glass windows. By recording these window strikes with Global Bird Rescue, we can identify the homes and buildings that require intervention to protect these tiny travelers.
Call to Action
Global Bird Rescue invites participation around the world, and you can join during peak fall migration to record any hummingbirds or other bird species that you find impacted by collision with pane glass, whether at your home or at another location. Use your findings to help you identify problem windows and apply window film to make pane glass visible to birds. You may also sign up for one or more of the programs that help to gather information about Ruby-throated Hummingbirds and other hummingbird species that migrate in the Americas. It is quick and easy to submit your observations to Journey North and Operation RubyThroat.
Barn Swallow
Barn Swallows (Hirundo rustica) are known for their deep blue back, rusty throat, and long, forked tail. Found across the globe, these birds are expert insect hunters, often seen swooping low over fields and water. They breed in North America during the summer months and migrate to Central and South America for the winter. European populations journey to Africa, while Asian swallows head to southern Asia or Australia. Their migration is a remarkable feat, often covering open landscapes, coasts, and even crossing vast oceans. Along the way, they rely on abundant food sources like flying insects to fuel their journey.
Threats to the Barn Swallow
Although Barn Swallows are abundant worldwide, their declining populations at national and local levels are raising alarms. In Canada, they are listed as a species of Special Concern due to significant population drops since the 1980s. Similarly, in the United States and countries like France, populations have declined by an estimated 40%. The primary culprit is the widespread use of pesticides, which not only kill insects but also reduce their availability and quality as a food source. Additional threats include the loss of traditional nesting sites due to urban development and the potential long-term impacts of climate change.
Community Science that Benefits the Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Collecting data on Barn Swallow populations is simple and impactful. These birds build distinctive mud nests on vertical structures like bridges, homes, and buildings, nesting either individually or in colonies. By reporting nesting sites and general observations, you can help track where Barn Swallows are found and in what numbers. This valuable data plays a key role in protecting their habitats and ensuring their populations thrive.
Call to Action
You can play a role in expanding our understanding of Barn Swallow populations worldwide. Platforms like NestWatch, run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, make it easy to report data on Barn Swallow nests. Additionally, their eBird platform allows you to log observations of Barn Swallows and other bird species throughout the year. NatureCounts encourages Canadian residents to participate in or create their own community science projects. Several focusing on swallows are already available. In Europe and Africa, the EURING Swallow Project relies on banding data to study populations, which has already spurred conservation efforts in Africa. Banding stations are always in need of volunteers—find one near you and get involved to make a difference!
American Oystercatcher
The American Oystercatcher (Haematopus palliatus) is a shorebird that is easily recognized because of its black-and-white plumage, bright orange bill, and yellow eyes. The juvenile featured here still has dark eyes. Found along coastal areas of the Americas, it forages on sandy beaches, mudflats, and salt marshes, using its strong bill to pry open shellfish like oysters and clams. American Oystercatchers are partial migrants, meaning their movement patterns vary by region and season. While some may stay close to their breeding grounds, others migrate to Southern Florida and the Caribbean during the non-breeding season.
Threats to the American Oystercatcher
Numbers of this shorebird are low, and it is considered a Species of High Conservation Concern in the United States. There are numerous causes for its decline, including loss of habitat and predation of eggs and chicks by free-roaming cats, foxes and other animals associated with urbanization. People, dogs, and vehicles on beaches can scare adults off nests, leaving eggs and chicks vulnerable to predators, weather, or trampling, reducing reproductive success. When oystercatchers forage, they may also ingest plastics or become entangled in them. Both can cause injury and death.
Community Science that Benefits the American Oystercatcher
There are many efforts to raise awareness of the threats to shorebirds and to gather information that will help their populations. Some of these projects have been especially created for American Oystercatchers and are designed to learn about oystercatcher movements and to learn where they nest. There are also many community science projects that are hosted on beaches, utilizing volunteers who lend their ability to walk beaches in search of oystercatchers and other shorebirds to determine their presence and their numbers.
Call to Action
If you see a banded oystercatcher, record the number on the band and submit it to the American Oystercatcher Working Group. This group tracks oystercatcher populations and uses tracking data to inform its recommendations for conservation of this species. BirdsCaribbean, a non-profit organization that works to protect birds in the region, hosts an annual shorebird count to record data about migratory and resident shorebird species. Learn more about the plastic pollution that is present on beaches, not just for American Oystercatchers, but for many other bird species. You can host a plastic pollution cleanup and share the information with one of the many programs that works to identify polluted beaches and other waterways, such as The Ocean Cleanup.
Spoon-billed Sandpiper
Spoon-billed Sandpiper (Calidris pygmaea) is a tiny, critically endangered shorebird best known for its unique spoon-shaped bill. It breeds on remote Arctic tundra in northeastern Russia and migrates thousands of miles to wintering grounds along the coasts of South and Southeast Asia. This species relies on shallow coastal wetlands, where it uses its specialized bill to sweep through mud for small invertebrates
Threats to the Spoon-billed Sandpiper
Habitat loss along migration routes and wintering areas has caused severe population declines of this species. Large-scale coastal development projects, especially in China’s Yellow Sea, have destroyed important wetlands and intertidal marshes. Traditional subsistence hunting and mist-netting have also been identified as major causes of mortality. International conservation efforts are essential for Spoon-billed Sandpiper survival.
Community Science that Benefits the Spoon-billed Sandpiper
The East Asian–Australasian Flyway Partnership (EAAFP) Spoon-billed Sandpiper Working Group works closely with local communities on the species’ wintering grounds, supporting alternative, sustainable livelihoods for former bird hunters. The EAAFP also manages the Leg Flag Sightings Database, which depends on observations from citizen scientists to track individually marked birds using unique colored leg flags.
The International Waterbird Census , coordinated by Wetlands International, is one of the world’s largest and longest running waterbird monitoring programs, hosted in 143 countries. Each midwinter, volunteers around the globe conduct synchronized counts in wetlands, generating long-term data on waterbird populations. These data are critical for understanding population trends of the Spoon-billed Sandpiper and for identifying key sites along the East Asian–Australasian Flyway.
Call to Action
No matter where you live, you can participate in the International Waterbird Census. Even if Spoon-billed Sandpipers are not found in your area, your observations are still valuable. The program collects data on waterbirds that rely on a wide range of natural and human-made wetlands, including rivers, lakes, reservoirs, ponds, freshwater swamps, mangroves, mudflats, coral reefs, rice fields, and sewage treatment wetlands.
Abdim’s Stork
Abdim’s Stork (Ciconia abdimii) is a small stork of sub-Saharan Africa, easily recognized by its dark iridescent plumage, white belly, and distinctive red legs and facial skin. It is a long-distance migrant, breeding in Africa and traveling north to the Sahel and East Africa during the wet season, where it often gathers in large flocks near wetlands, grasslands, and agricultural fields.
Abdim’s Stork is named for Adolphe Abdim, a 19th-century Ethiopian official and naturalist who collected specimens and contributed to early scientific knowledge of East African wildlife.
Threats to the Abdim’s Stork
Numbers of Abdim’s Stork are declining, but because of its broad range, it is not considered vulnerable or a species of concern. A recent report on our knowledge of storks around the world, however, demonstrates that reliable evidence for stork populations are not available. Abdim’s Stork has been the subject of only 16 studies, almost half of which have focused on breeding ecology.
The species is potentially threatened by habitat degradation caused by urban development and agricultural expansion, including maize farming, which has reduced the extent of natural grasslands. In Namibia, additional pressures include overgrazing and bush encroachment. The species may also be affected by efforts to control its primary food source—locusts—either through direct poisoning or by reducing food availability. In some cases, mass mortality events have been linked to extensive pesticide use. Additionally, the species is hunted and traded in traditional medicine markets in parts of West Africa.
Community Science that Benefits the Abdim’s Stork
Community science projects can be less visible or harder to access in parts of Africa, perhaps due to language barriers. As an insect-dependent species, Abdim’s Stork is also vulnerable to pesticide use and its numbers are likely impacted differently in various parts of its range. Broad, collaborative community science efforts are essential for tracking its populations, and individual sightings can make a meaningful contribution. The Southern African Bird Atlas Project is one of the most important sources of information supporting this work.
Call to Action
The Southern African Bird Atlas Project is a community science project to map the distribution of birds across several southern African countries. The project maps the distribution and relative abundance of birds in southern Africa and includes: South Africa, Lesotho, Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique, eSwatini, Zimbabwe, Zambia.
