Earlham's Birding Big Day took place May 8-10 2020! You can see a list of observers here.
Birding Big Day is a bird-a-thon and fundraiser for the Earlham Fund, which helps provide scholarships to make an Earlham education accessible to students. Each year birders find great joy in joining friends outdoors, the challenge of finding birds, and doing something important for the College.
As always, you can catch up on the excitement on the Earlham Birders Facebook group.
History of Birding Big Day at Earlham
Earlham biology professors Jim Cope and Bill Buskirk created Birding Big Day in 1982. They nurtured this event and saw it blossom into an annual tradition of day-long birding in the Whitewater Valley.
After Jim passed away in March 2002, Bill opened the experience to even more birding enthusiasts in the Earlham community. Every year since then, alumni, students, faculty and staff form birding teams with the challenge of seeking as many different species they can find in a day.
In 2008, Associate Professor of Biology Wendy Tori joined the ECBBD campus team, sharing her enthusiasm for ornithology with students and alums.
This event became worldwide in 2009. To date, ECBBD has generated more than $900,000 for the Earlham Fund.