Registration is now open for the second annual Alabama Bird Search – Youth Challenge (ABS) and T-shirt Art Contest. During this state-wide, twenty-four-hour competitive birding event, youth teams ranging from prekindergarten through high school will compete against other teams in their age division for most species identified, among other categories, for prizes and recognition. There will also be a T-shirt art contest, with the grand prize-winning art featured on the event’s T-shirt next year. Participants will choose one 24-hour period to compete during a nine-day window, April 18th-27th, 2025. The competition ends in a recognition and awards event at Turkey Creek Nature Preserve on Apr. 27th, 2025. More info and links to register can be found on Alabama Audubon’s events website pages here: https://alaudubon.org/event/bird-search/youth/04-20-25
ABS is proud to be partnering with Alabama Audubon, Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind (AIDB), Alabama Ornithological Society, Jefferson County Greenways and Trailkeeper’s Clothing Company. ABS encourages interested individuals to visit partner websites and follow social media for events, opportunities and more information relating to the competition, including how to submit artwork, no later than March 21st, 2025 and register teams, no later than April 1st, 2025. Follow #alabamabirdsearch on social media.
Last year’s inaugural competition, hosted by Birmingham Zoo, registered sixty-four participants, comprising 17 teams from across Alabama. These teams vied for the top spots in Alabama’s first birding competition for youth and teams placing first in their age division received a set of binoculars for each teammate. Second and third place teams also received prizes. High School team, Bama Kingbirds, identified 171 species in twenty-four hours, setting a Big Day record for the ABS and for an exclusively youth-led team in Alabama.
The grand prize-winning art from last year’s competition, features a Prothonotary Warbler by Brooklyn Burdine, a 7th grader from Albertville. Her artwork will be featured on this year’s event T-shirt.
Alabama youth of all skill levels are encouraged to compete. To learn basic birding skills, beginning teams may request to be paired with a volunteer birding mentor in the months leading up to the competition. Any skilled birders that would like to share their knowledge with the next generation of birders should reach out to the ABS, or one of its partners, as soon as possible. There will be a prize for the volunteer who contributes the most time mentoring one or more teams.
Along with its partner organizations, ABS is dedicated to busting the stereotype of the typical birder, which may be discouraging to many beginners. To be a successful birder, birders do not need expensive clothing or equipment, fully able bodies, to be of a certain age or come from a certain community. The goal of the ABS is to further diversity, equity, accessibility and inclusion in birding by showing the community that anybody can bird. Working towards this goal, the ABS will recognize teams that show a dedication to furthering this goal with the “AnyBody Can Bird” prize category. This prize will recognize teams that choose to compete in this category and include, for example, teams that bird without binoculars or optics of any kind, teams that only count species that are “heard only” or has one or more team members who are blind, or teams that have one or more team members who utilize wheelchairs or have limited mobility. Other plans to make the competition more accessible include the following: a
limited supply of binoculars and field guides will be available for checkout, registration materials will be available in Braille, and sign-language interpreters will be present at the awards picnic if needed.
The ABS Youth Challenge is directly modeled after the highly successful Youth Birding Competition hosted by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR) since 2006, collaborating with the Georgia Ornithological Society (GOS) and several local Audubon Chapters in that state. Through the influence of this competition, many Georgia youth have been introduced to birding and encouraged to grow into active members of the birding community and become dedicated conservationists. The ABS Youth Challenge hopes that a state-wide competition will give Alabama’s youth the same opportunity to learn about the great biodiversity of native birds, get outside enjoying a new sport and will inspire “passion to conserve the natural world,” the mission of the Birmingham Zoo, where the ABS Youth Challenge was founded.
