African Bird Clubs: Bird conservation through bird watching

Our goal

Protection of Birds and their habitats in Sierra Leone.

Our approach

We want to get more people interested in birds to help to protect them and their habitats. Our approach is to achieve bird protection through bird watching.

Working through the Conservation Society of Serra Leone (CSSL) which has up to 500 members, Bird Clubs will be formed to engage young people in birdwatching and to undertake regular bird watching trips to selected sites, especially to Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas.

The main strategy will be to form Bird Clubs that have at least six people with at least one person with appropriate birding skills, train the club members and encourage regular birding excursions. As friends and colleagues get involved, the number of people interested in birds and conservation will increase.

Training will range from basic bird identification and the use of binoculars to use of the Bird App “BirdLasser” and how to upload data onto a Sierra Leone Bird Atlas page generated through the Africa Bird Atlas Project.

Our activities

• To increase the number of birdwatchers through trainings and new bird clubs
• To produce useful information on the numbers and distribution of the birds
• To train young birdwatchers to produce reliable scientific information from birdwatching
• To use social media and apps to spread information and attract more members

Outcomes we want to achieve

By the end of the project, four bird clubs would have been formed.

Twenty (20) or more Sierra Leoneans would have been trained in bird identification; a minimum of 10 of these would know how to use the Bird App BirdLasser and to make input to a digital Sierra Leone Bird Atlas.

A digitised Sierra Leone bird list will exist.

A dedicated Facebook page for the Bird Clubs will be hosted by CSSL and developed to attract participants and to publicize their activities.