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. More than 300 species of birds regularly visit or live in the Southeast Region. This is close to half of all bird species found in North America north of Mexico.