DNR Birdathon: ‘Great Year’ For Youth, Birds

Mansfield, Ga.

Monday, April 14, 2025, 13:45 pm

The 19th annual Georgia Youth Birding Competition drew about 130 young birders from across the state to Charlie Elliott Wildlife Center Saturday.

After the awards banquet at the Mansfield center, event founder and coordinator Tim Keyes of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources summed up what he called “another great year.”

“We had new rookie teams in every age division,” said Keyes, a DNR program manager. “Two teams raised funds for wildlife conservation. We had a lot of volunteers throughout, including some of Georgia’s top birders serving as judges. Despite the earlier date of the competition, which makes some migrants harder to find, we still had teams recording excellent numbers of species.”

The Amazing Anhingas, from Glynn County, won the high school division and overall competition, seeing or hearing 121 species in a 24-hour search that ranged from Forsyth to the coast. Ten of the 37 teams listed 70 or more species and two had over 100.

The Youth Birding Competition is aimed at inspiring an awareness and appreciation of Georgia birds and the outdoors. This year’s event ran from April 4 until 5 p.m. Saturday. During that nine-day span, kindergarteners through high-schoolers picked a 24-hour period and competed by age group to find the most bird species. Teams sporting names such as Jackson Juncos, Chirp Squad and Robin Noodles hailed from Alto, Harlem and Brunswick.

“Seeing all the tired but excited teams arrive, and hearing all the stories about the day of birding and how birding has impacted their lives and families, is always one of the highlights of my year,” said Keyes.

Two teams from Madison voluntarily chose to raise funds for The Environmental Resources Network Inc. or TERN (friends group of DNR’s Wildlife Conservation Section). The elementary team Bird Dawgs will donate $100, and the middle school team Singing Sparrows raised $50.

Tasha Messer received the Mentor Award. The Dekalb County naturalist spent 196 hours prepping and mentoring two teams: the Birding Crew (Primary Division) and American Eagles (Elementary Division). Messer encouraged youth through bird walks and entering artwork in the Youth Birding T-shirt Art Contest. Her efforts paid off as both of her teams won awards this year. She won a beautiful, framed print of a pair of mourning doves by Dick Parks, a founding member of the Georgia Ornithological Society.

More than 160 entries in the T-shirt Art Contest were highlighted at the banquet, with a slideshow of images playing on large screens. Birding participants received shirts featuring a richly colored drawing of red-breasted mergansers by Erin Moore, a ninth-grader at Walton High School in Marietta. As winner of the art contest’s grand prize as well as the high school division, Moore took home a $100 Amazon gift card.

While DNR named most T-shirt division winners in late February, the top entry from a youth who took part in the birding competition was announced at the banquet Saturday. That honor went to Mattie Middleton for her painting of an American restart. The junior from Model High School in Rome birded with the Bufford Bluebirds team.

This year’s winning art entries are posted at https://bit.ly/2025YBCTshirtArt.

The 2026 Youth Birding Competition banquet will be held on April 18. Registration opens online in winter 2025.

The competition and art contest – which have inspired similar events in other states, including Birmingham Zoo’s recent Alabama Bird Search Youth Challenge – are sponsored by DNR’s Wildlife Conservation Section, The Environmental Resources Network Inc. or TERN (friends group of the Wildlife Conservation Section) and others including Birds Georgia, Georgia Ornithological Society and Georgia Power. Visit https://georgiawildlife.com/ybc for details.

The Wildlife Conservation Section conserves Georgia wildlife not legally fished for or hunted, as well as rare plants and natural habitats. The agency depends primarily on fundraisers, grants and contributions. Learn more at https://gadnr.org/license-plates and https://georgiawildlife.com/donations.

Birding Competition Results

High School Division

Amazing Anhingas (Brunswick): 121 species, division and overall competition winner
Awesome Anhingas (Cobb County): 116 species
Bold Eagles (Atlanta): 98 species

Middle School Division

Flap Happy (Atlanta): 91 species
The Buzz (Atlanta): 90 species
Beaky Blinders (Atlanta): 85 species

Elementary School Division

Eagle Eyes (Brunswick): 87 species
Bird Dawgs (Madison): 79 species
TIE: American Eagles (Atlanta) and Wildwood Wrens (Oxford): 45 species

Primary School Division

Birding Crew (DeKalb County): 42 species
Rockin’ Robins (Madison): 41 species
Bird Ninjas (Cobb County): 28 species

Fundraising (division leaders)
1. Elementary: Bird Dawgs (Madison): division and overall top fundraiser, raising $100 (for TERN)
2. Middle: Singing Sparrows (Madison): $50 (for TERN)
Fundraising for conservation is a voluntary part of the event.

Top first-year teams