By Neil Brookhouse

Birdathon Chair, Amos Butler Audubon Society

2026 marks the 39th annual Amos Butler Audubon Society Birdathon. This year, ABAS received nine grants, a smaller number than the last, allowing the Birdathon Committee flexibility to fully or partially approve all of them. Grant requests this year focused primarily on conservation, restoration, and research, with an increase in submissions highlighting education and accessibility as well. With climate change and habitat loss accelerating at home and abroad, many species of our beloved North American birds are finding themselves in increasingly dire straits, but this year’s grants may help them stand a fighting chance.

ABAS is happy to declare continued cooperation with our long-term national partner the American Bird Conservancy and our mother organization the Indiana Audubon Society, as well as local partners like the Marian University EcoLab, Conner Prairie, Hamilton County Parks and Recreation, and Keep Indianapolis Beautiful. ABAS is pleased to now claim a bourgeoning partnership with Franklin College this year as well.

Continuing Reforestation for Winter Habitat in the Central Andes

American Bird Conservancy: $18,000. The protection of our local species is an effort both herculean and holistic, and the fight doesn’t end at home. Our summer songbirds are Central and South America’s winter residents, and maintaining a robust winter habitat is crucial in keeping their population afloat. This year marks our sixth year in supporting the Central Andes BirdScape Project of the American Bird Conservancy, and with reduced federal grant funding, it’s more important now than it ever has been to support this project in its mission to restore and manage vital wintering habitat in the coffee-growing region of Caldas. Much of the restoration labor in this region is done by local farmers, working in tandem with forestry technicians, who provide integral support and outreach, including engaging farmers to commit to planting threatened native trees on their properties and encouraging sustainable agricultural practices.

Indiana’s sapphire of summer, the Cerulean Warbler, has significantly struggled over the past few decades, with its population declining to such an extent that it now meets the threshold of Near-Threatened species. This project’s work across four watersheds will restore and preserve miles of vital roosting and feeding grounds for one of our favorite nesters and increase their chances of successful breeding seasons upon their return to Indiana woods.

Preserving and Enhancing Local Habitats

  • Marian University EcoLab: $3,000 to replant native trees and shrubs on the south end of the EcoLab, where a largescale invasive removal project was recently completed. Additionally, boot brush stations will be installed to ensure that invasives don’t regain a foothold and to educate the public on the potential for people to become seed vectors in natural environments.
  • Keep Indianapolis Beautiful: $2,000 to plant thousands of perennial flowers and 20 trees in a new traffic safety garden and bike park at 29th Street and the Central Canal. This currently barren patch of concrete will soon be home to such native jewels as little bluestem, eastern star sedge, switchgrass, blue sage, prairie dropseed, butterfly weed, coneflower, and black-eyed susan, among others, which will provide vital food sources for birds and the insects they feast upon.
  • Hamilton County Parks & Recreation: $1,500 for the purchase and installation of 12 gourd houses for Purple Martins, as well as interpretive signage to inform the public of the project’s goal. For the past two breeding seasons, this project has attracted Purple Martins and provided them with safe and fruitful habitat. This year’s grant will double the colony potential, offering even more real estate for these deft darters that rely so much on human-led habitat support.

Research, Education, and Stewardship

  • Indiana University Kokomo: $9,100 for state-of-the-art ultralight BluMorpho transmitters, which will be affixed to local Ruby-throated Hummingbirds to track their movement patterns in urban habitats and their long-distance migration behavior in urban and rural environments throughout Central Indiana. This project, led by Lina Rafai, is part of a global coordinated study that may shed light on the effects of urbanization and climate change on Indiana’s tiniest avians.
  • Indiana Audubon Society: $2,500 for the purchase of banding equipment and training and outreach seminars to be conducted across Central Indiana. This grant will foster banding apprenticeships at summer camps at Mary Gray Bird Sanctuary and the Eagle Creek Park Ornithology Center, providing hands-on banding demonstrations and fostering ideals of stewardship in a new generation of Indiana birders.
  • Center for Earth & Environmental Science: $2,000 for the purchase of high-quality binoculars, providing the opportunity for bird-focused education and outreach. These binoculars will also be a boon to IU Indianapolis’s ornithology courses, providing vital equipment that will facilitate class birdwatching trips.
  • Franklin College: $1,600 to fund Avian Adventures, a STEM camp that will immerse middle and high school students in the ecology, biology, and conservation of birds. This hands-on experience will foster scientific literacy in addition to environmental stewardship, providing kids with activities like call identification courses, goose banding demonstrations, owl pellet dissections, and nature journaling, as well as a lab on the physics of avian flight.

Accessibility & Inclusion

Conner Prairie Museum: $1,000 for the purchase of adaptive equipment, including a scope that will encourage participation among children and make birding more accessible for members of our birding community who are elderly or disabled.