This month, you may catch a glimpse of warblers, shorebirds and thrushes, to name but a few. What you won't see are the many challenges that migratory birds face on their annual journey. So many, in fact, that the second Saturday in May is set aside each year as International Migratory Bird Day, to focus attention on this beautiful and fragile resource. For the vast majority of people, birds represent their sole everyday contact with wildlife. Birds connect all of us, from city dwellers to suburbanites to rural farmers, with the natural world.
Migratory birds are an excellent indicator of the overall health of an ecosystem.
When bird species are declining, we should be concerned. Migratory birds provide significant economic benefits. In fact, birdwatching is one of the fastest growing recreational activities in the United States, outpacing golf and rivaling gardening in terms of numbers of participants. The southeastern United States is of critical importance to bird conservation. We not only provide essential, year-round habitat for a large number of species, we also host migrating flocks.