Guest post by Brian Landever, Director of CONAPAC, and Christa Dillabaugh, Director of the Morpho Institute

What happens when you mix more than 1000 students, 250 teachers, 75 binoculars, 26 remote Amazon rainforest communities, a host of international partners, and one ecolodge?  An incredible bird education project in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon! 

Thanks to collaboration between CONAPAC, the Morpho Institute, and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, students from pre-school through high school are learning about behavior, habitat needs, and cultural significance of birds in the Amazon. Their passion became evident when students presented unsolicited skits, songs, and dances related to bird conservation during CONAPAC’s April 2019 visits to participating villages.

Then, in September 2019, 26 remote communities participated in this region’s first ever bird festival. Hosted in the community of Manati on the Amazon River, students inspired onlookers with bird-related art, music, and dance. Read all about this birding festival and CONAPAC’s educational efforts in the Amazon in our previous post: A Bird Celebration REVOLUTION is Happening Right Now in the Amazon.

Photo Credit: CONAPAC

With growing publicity, the students and teachers are excited to be recognized as leaders in a new force for conservation of the Amazon rainforest.

The Morpho Institute is proud to support this growing movement via our Amazon Binocular Project. When children hold up a pair of binoculars and focus on a familiar bird for the first time, their faces light up with glee. When binoculars are left in their communities, students become experts on the behaviors and habitats of their local birds. But we don’t yet have enough binoculars to meet demand. The 75 pairs of binoculars that we have provided are in constant use, and we aim to add 225 more by 2021.

Photo credit: CONAPAC

You can support this effort to give Amazon students the tools they need to deepen their appreciation of their local birds and support their teachers in taking bird education to new heights!

Please consider donating to the Amazon Binocular Project: https://morphoinstitute.org/amazon-binocular-project/

You also can support Amazon Teacher Training Workshops by donating to CONAPAC at www.conapac.org

Thank you for playing a role in supporting Amazon conservation through education!

The post Taking Flight! Children’s Love of Birds Inspires Hope for the Amazon appeared first on BirdsEye Nature Apps.

By Brian Landever

More than 1000 students from 26 remote Amazon rainforest communities gathered this September to participate in the first-ever bird festivals in the Peruvian department of Loreto. They awoke early, traveled to neighboring communities along the Amazon rivers, and spent the days presenting elaborate performances related to bird conservation and discussing the impact of birding in their communities.

Activities celebrating birds and birding have gained momentum since 2017, and a revolution is building. It’s a celebrative kind, raising spirits and enhancing the cultural arts.  Children are showing excitement for the natural world, and their parents are following suit.  It’s in good time; Peru has been listed as the world’s best country for bird watching, and is second worldwide for most species of birds registered. Most importantly, these activities are showing concrete increases in bird conservation.

The people in this region are strong, accustomed to the intense Amazon sun, and mainly fish and grow crops for sustenance. Children and adults cheerfully play sports every afternoon, and couples help one another with fishing. Their music with flutes, drums, and rattles, their regional dances related to animals, and their stories about the meanings behind bird encounters are just a few aspects of the people’s rich culture. Their homes may not have electricity or running water, and are over 100 kilometers from the closest city, but the warmth and comfort they have amongst one another in communities makes international visitors appreciate coming here.

Although many visitors return frequently, until recently, the forest was not commonly explored for leisure; entering only when hunting was the priority. That’s all changing now. Now, there’s a greater awareness of how the birds are important to the environment, developing the people’s pride for their home.

Education is key

Thousands of K-12 students became involved in this movement over the past several years. Their teachers are leading outdoor, project-based classes to inform them of the region’s bird species’ habitat, behavior, nesting, diet, cultural stories, and more. And their new curriculum is paying off.

During these festivals, students share what they are learning in unique ways. Some students perform activist theatre, portraying stories of birds fighting to retake their habitat after being encroached upon. Other students draw finely detailed portraits of the birds with masterful skill, and still others have crafted replica bird nests to explore nest functions. One high school senior rapped about birds’ beauty and the tragedy of losing them. Another 14-year-old young woman’s dramatic poetry about respecting birds in nature left watchers teary-eyed. Groups of younger students were happy to be included too, sharing well-practiced songs about birds’ beauty. One mother even rose to share an unsolicited folk song about the Blue-gray Tanager.

The impact of this is visible. Children are heard stopping their classmates from killing birds, and their parents report no longer hunting birds in unsustainable ways.  

Behind these activities are 250 dedicated teachers, Peruvian NGO CONAPAC, led by Brian Landever, and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology (CLO), represented by Karen A. Purcell and Marilu López Fretts. They have been co-creating training workshops each year since 2017, resulting in dozens of dynamic lesson plans, materials, communication methods, and culturally embedded evaluations all focused on keeping enthusiasm strong.

Building a revolution

In 2017, the first ornithology training workshop was held for teachers from these rural communities. Karen A. Purcell and the “Celebrate Birds” citizen science team began co-developing materials, and soon launched an engaging, fun, culturally sensitive educational program focused on bird conservation.

In 2018, teachers began notably increasing their involvement following bi-monthly meetings with the CLO team. The large WhatsApp group began to receive hundreds of photos posted weekly by the teachers, excited to share their progress, in turn motivating one another.

In early 2019, there was no doubt that the program had matured when students presented unsolicited, elaborate skits and dances related to bird conservation during CONAPAC’s visits to their communities. Thousands of photos of class developments began to fill the WhatsApp group monthly, and the program supporters, JBQ Charitable Foundation and the Amazon Binocular Project, have stated they could not have used their donations in a better manner.

When the last workshop was held in June 2019, at Explorama’s lodges, located on the Amazon and Napo rivers, the teachers themselves opened the event. They had prepared creative songs, photo-realistic sketches of birds, and enthusiastic presentations of what they had accomplished to date with their students. The entire week was festive, productive, and further prepared the teachers with strong class curriculum. CONAPAC’s footage of these classes on its YouTube channel effectively capture the enthusiasm of these events.

In turn, the students are receiving motivated class sessions and can see that they have become part of something that is expanding, and being appreciated worldwide. The culmination of this, five bird festivals that took place in September, has surpassed everyone’s expectations.

Moving forward

During these festivals, the perspectives of local people were inquired into more closely in open conversations following each morning’s presentations. Discussions amongst parents, community authorities, students, and teachers with CLO are building an understanding of the movement’s impact on people’s lives and environment.

New, exciting initiatives were also shared during the festivals, including long trails, or “senderos,” complete with benches and gazebos, built by parents for children to birdwatch in the forest, building their understanding of how birds live in nature.

Right now, thorough, co-created program evaluations are being led by CLO to analyze the progress being made. The classes continue regularly, and bird clubs are meeting regularly amongst the most interested students from each community. Eight birdwatching trails have been developed, and more are being planned. The first community-led bird festival in Loreto was held on October 30th, 2019, uniting 11 communities and 600 people, leading to a press report.

The potential for this program to have a positive environmental and social impact is clear. As it gains more attention in Peru and internationally, it will add momentum to the global movement to respect and conserve the Amazon rainforest. For bird appreciators, incorporating ongoing citizen science data from students and community members will expand the database of birds from this region on Cornell’s eBird.com. If the Peruvian board of education replicates the training and materials in other areas of Peru, the impact would multiply tremendously, further fueling the country’s strong efforts to be a prime tourist destination. If more bird festivals occur, celebrating birds could become a proud new tradition.

Nonetheless, what has happened over the past three years has given unforgettable, enjoyable memories to thousands of children in Peru, empowering them with activities that contribute to the wellness of the Amazon rainforest and the planet overall.

Brian Landever is Director of Conapac, devoted to conservation and community development, in Iquitos, Peru.

The post A Bird Celebration REVOLUTION is Happening Right Now in the Amazon appeared first on BirdsEye Nature Apps.

The BirdsEye team collected our ten favorite photos, then consulted professional photographers to choose the final three.

Here, along with a short story about each photo, are the winners.

FIRST PLACE
Debbie Reynolds, Sunbittern

Debbie’s story: “I love “shooting” birds, and just happened to be going to the Pantanal in September, saw your email asking for shots of South American Birds, and thought I would send you a few of my favorites. 

 “This photo was taken on the Cuiabá River, where we stayed at the end of the Transpantaneira Highway at the Hotel Pantanal Norte.  We were riding in an 8 person boat up and down the river, looking for birds and mammals, and spotted this Sunbittern on a sandbar, just getting ready to take off.  

“The boat was bouncing around, but I managed to lock my camera onto the bird before it took off, and it happened to fly right in front of the boat.  I was using my Canon EOS 5D Mark IV camera, with a 400 MM lens.  F/5.6 and ISO 640.”

SECOND PLACE
Alexandre Gualhanone, Yellow-fronted Woodpecker

Alexandre’s story: “This photo was taken on a trip to the Tucanos Trail in the city of Tapiraí, State of San Pablo, Brazil, in the company of great friends, also birdwatchers. The bird was approaching a feeder for food.

“The Tucanos Trail is one of the hotspot of the State of São Paulo. It has over 300 species of birds recorded on its self-guided trails, feeders and drinkers.”

This photo was taken with a Canon EOS 7D Mark II, Canon EF 100-400mm f / 4.5-5.6L IS USM lens, exposure time: 1/50, aperture: f / 5.6, ISO: 500, distance: 148.0 mm.

You can find Alexandre and his beautiful photos on Instagram @gualhanonebirdwatching

THIRD PLACE
Bonnie Flamer, Hyacinth Macaw

Bonnie’s story: “I was able to witness these gorgeous Hyacinth Macaws at Porto Joffre in the central portion of the Mato Grosso, Pantanal, Brazil. I was with a photo group that was there for birding and Jaguars. We took a tour around the property for birds before we were to go out in boats to see the wildlife on the rivers and channels in the area.

“As we were coming to the end of our tour we saw this pair of Macaws playing at the top of a palm tree. They played for a very long time and I and my group were able to take many photos. We were also lucky to get the Ipy trees in the background as they only bloom their pink blossoms for 5 days out of the year and the contrast of the blue macaws and the pink in the background made the photos.

“I used a Nikon 7100 with an 80-400mm lens, at 1/800 and f6.3.”

Congrats to our winners, and thank you to everyone who participated! – The BirdsEye Team

Note: Special winners, who were among the first 25 to submit quality photos of species on our “need these birds” list, will be announced soon!

The post Winners of the Birds of South America Photo Contest appeared first on BirdsEye Nature Apps.

Announcing the Summer 2019 BirdsEye Photo Contest!

Thanks to users like you, BirdsEye Nature Apps has amassed one of the most complete and high-quality photo collections of birds, odes, and butterflies in the world! Our company is dedicated to acquiring a comprehensive photo library for our nature apps, and we rely on our users for many of these brilliant images.

To celebrate the summer, we are delighted to announce our second BirdsEye Photography Contest. This time, our contest will feature the beautiful birds of South America. The contest is designed to bolster our South American bird collection and highlight accomplished birders and photographers.

So if you’ve been birding in South America, or are planning a trip this summer, consider snapping a few shots to share with the BirdsEye community.

Enter today—for free—for a chance to win the following prizes.

First Prize: $100 Amazon giftcard

Second Prize: $50 Amazon giftcard

Third Prize: One free download of the Birds of Peru app

Additional Prizes: A one-year membership to BirdsEye Worldwide will also be awarded to the first 25 contestants who submit high-quality photos of any species on this list. These photos may be featured on our recently launched Birds of Ecuador app!

Photo Guidelines:

We are looking for photos of birds native to South America depicted accurately in their environment. These photos will feature in our apps and marketing campaigns to help users identify birds when they are in the field. We always give proper credit to the photographer.

Judges are looking for clean, unobstructed photos of birds in a natural environment. Extra consideration will be given to pictures of rarer birds or photos depicting unique bird behaviors.

Contest Rules:

Photos for this contest should be submitted to birdseye.photo/submit anytime between July 23, 2019 and September 30, 2019.

If you don’t already have a BirdsEye photo account, create one at birdseye.photo/create_account/.

All photo contest submissions must include the hashtag #photocontest2019 in the caption section of the submission page. This hashtag is the only way we will identify contest submissions.

Following #photocontest2019 in the caption, please include a short description of the bird. To verify photos were taken in South America, all submissions require location information.

Photos should be submitted as .JPGs and should be under 5 MB in size. We prefer to receive photos that are 576 x 720 pixels or larger.

Potential winners may be asked to provide higher resolution photos, and/or .RAW files to help in judging.

All submitters must agree to the BirdsEye Terms of Service.

Eligible Regions:

SOUTH AMERICA
Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Galápagos Islands, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, Venezuela

If you don’t have an BirdsEye photo account, create one now!

The post Photography Contest: Birds of South America appeared first on BirdsEye Nature Apps.