Young Birder of the Year Contest

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The 2008 ABA/Leica Young Birder of the Year Contest

Never leave the house without your binocular and/or birds on the brain? If you are age 10-18 years old and enjoy all aspects of birding, then the ABA/Leica Young Birder of the Year Contest is for you! The American Birding Association and Leica Sport Optics have teamed up to offer this exciting annual competition for young birders to test and hone their many birding skills.

This contest was designed to appeal to the broad range of interests and talents exhibited by young birders today. Do you take detailed field notes on birds? Draw or photograph birds? Write about birds? Then you can choose any or all of four "modules" to customize the contest to fit your own interests. Here are the important details:

1. The contest runs from April through September. Materials are due at the ABA by 10 October 2008. View our timeline for more information.
2. There are two age groups, 10-13, and 14-18
3. There are four modules in the contest:
   • Field notebook, which entails taking field notes and making field sketches of birds as you observe them in the field. This is the only required module for the overall Young Birder of the Year.
   • Illustration, which involves drawing or painting birds that you see or that interest you most.
   • Writing, write about birds, birdwatching, and your experiences with both.
   • Photography, which is simply photographing birds either on film or digitally.
4. For each module, and both age groups within that module, there are first, second, and third place module prizes to be won
5. Young Birder of the Year. We will be awarding a grand prize for the overall Young Birder of the Year. In order to compete in the overall Young Birder of the Year category, you need to participate in at least three of the modules (Field Notebook must be one of these).
6. In order to make the contest as open to everyone as possible, previous Grand Prize winners for the overall Young Birder of the Year Contest may compete in individual modules but are NOT eligible to win the Overall Young Birder of the Year more than one time.

You are not required to participate in the overall Young Birder of the Year category to participate in the contest - you may choose to participate in one or more modules of your choice. There are first, second, and third place prizes (in both age groups) for each of the four modules. The overall Young Birder of the Year will have first and second place prizes.

What You Need to Do

To have a chance to win, you'll need to do the following:

• Choose the module (or modules) in which you would like to participate
• Complete and send us your registration form with your registration fee by 1 June 2008.
• If you are a first time participant, please use the "First Time" registration form
• If you participated last year in the YBY Contest, please use the "Repeat" registration form
• Actively participate in your selected module(s) throughout the contest period
• Send us your completed materials by 10 October 2008

A panel of well-known birding professionals will judge your materials and, if you've shown great improvement, effort, and/or skill, you stand a chance of winning some of the fabulous prizes donated by our sponsors. If you're still interested, read on!

Great Prizes for You to Win

• Each module has first, second, and third place prizes for both age groups.
• In addition, we'll be picking a first and second place Young Birder of the Year for each of two age groups - 10-13 years and 14-18 years. 
• All winners, honorable mentions, and participants will also receive certificates to commemorate their achievement.
• Winners may also have their work published in one of the ABA publications and/or on the ABA website.

How does it work?

The competition will run from the first of April through the end of September. You can register by downloading a registration form and returning it with your registration fee.

With the first-time participant registration fee, you will receive an ABA Field Notebook, ABA Field Notebook Manual, the National Geographic Society's Field Guide to the Birds of North America, an ABA TripList, and some guidelines on the contest. Repeat participants receive the ABA Field Notebook, ABA TripList and guidelines.

If you aren't already an ABA member, or don't already subscribe to A Bird's-Eye View, the ABA's youth newsletter, you'll need to include the fees to cover this too (see registration form for details). Our newsletter is the main medium through which we communicate with you throughout the year.

Judges

After you send in your materials at the beginning of October, we'll convene our judging panel.

Scoring is composite with each module's work being appraised by three different judges. If the panel judges you to be one of the winners, we'll display some of your winning entries on our website and possibly in one of ABA's publications.

ABA would like to thank the members of the judging panel for the 2007 contest: Jessie Barry, Steve Carbol, Alvaro Jaramillo, Michael O'Brien, Marie Read, Bill Schmoker, Tom Schultz, John Sill, Bob Steele, Rick Wright, Louise Zemaitis, Julie Zickefoose.

**Your materials will be returned to you, after judging is completed.**

And finally, a word from our sponsors.

The ABA/Leica Young Birder of the Year Contest is organized by the ABA and sponsored by Leica Sport Optics. In addition, many fine companies and organizations support this competition through generous donations to be used for prizes. Thank you to all of our sponsors!

Why are we doing this?

The ABA and Leica are committed to educating and developing good field skills in young birders. By providing some strong incentives to develop these skills, we hope that you'll learn some good habits that will pay dividends for the rest of your birding life.

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