Barred Owl © Kent McFarland
Step One: Choose What You’ll Count
Choose to count all the winged things (birds, bats, and winged insects) along with VCE’s team or go all in for birds. The choice is yours!
Step Two: Choose Your Team and Location
You can go solo or form a team! Count in your backyard, neighborhood, favorite natural area, or at an under-surveyed area in Vermont. You can find under-surveyed areas on our map.
Step Three: Recruit Sponsors
Call or email your relatives, friends, or neighbors and ask them to support you by pledging a set dollar amount or an amount per species counted. Be sure to let them know if you’re counting all the winged things or sticking with the birds. Download this form to help you track your sponsors.
Step Four: Join Our iNaturalist Project
Join our project on iNaturalist: VCE Biothon 2023: Wings Over Vermont. Never used iNaturalist before? Learn how on iNaturalist’s Getting Started page.
Step Five: Get out, Count, and Upload Your Observations
Choose a 24-hour period during the month of May and head out to count every winged thing you can find, recording all your observations in VCE’s Biothon 2023 project on iNaturalist. If you’re counting birds only and prefer a paper checklist, you can download a Vermont eBird printable checklist or visit the Vermont eBird bar chart page to learn what might be found near you. You can also try this easy to use checklist.
Step Six: Collect Sponsor Pledges
Report to your sponsors with your count and collect their pledges. Checks should be made out to the Vermont Center for Ecostudies.
Step Seven: Return your Count and Pledges
After you have done your count and collected all of your pledges, send the completed sponsor form and collected contributions to the Vermont Center for Ecostudies, PO Box 420, Norwich, VT 05055.
