We finished up the 2025 BirdSleuth (or Detectives de Aves) season in 6 local elementary schools and 1 high school very successfully! Check out the great reel by clicking on the image ABOVE, created by team member and one of our BirdSleuth instructors, María Sandí (left, accompanied by students, Magaly Quesada wearing sunglasses, who one of our instructors-in-training this year, and interns Hanedy Vergara from Mexico on Magaly’s left and Bianca Tenconi from Italy on Magaly’s right).
We reached 184 students: 81 primary students and 103 secondary students. This number was reached through our weekly visits to schools, and through a pilot collaboration with the Sabalito Natural Reserve, which generously funded visits of several high school classrooms to their site for a morning of “mini-modules” and birding. This model was a success and we hope to continue it next year!
Another exciting component of our BirdSleuth outreach this year was the extensive field-testing of new material focused on the Motus Wildlife Tracking System (of Birds Canada), as Finca Cántaros became the site of the second Motus tower in all of Costa Rica in 2020. Check out our station here: https://motus.org/dashboard/#e=profile&d=stations&s=13501.
We wrapped up the BirdSleuth season as always with visits to Finca Cántaros to facilitate tree GROWING activities, to give students the opportunity to help create and protect critical bird habitat.
With all successes come challenges, and we feel it is just as important to share those so that we can learn and find solutions. Transportation and other logistics related to bringing students to Finca Cántaros is always a challenge, and schools often need financial support to make these activities happen. While we are happy to dedicate budget to these important, meaningful experiences, we also learned this year that we need to do more to emphasize to teachers and schools alike that the classes our organization offers are not free. They represent an investment of time, energy and resources in terms of staff, material and more, and sometimes our instructors will arrive at a school ready to teach only to discover the kids were sent to another activity unexpectedly without notice.
We know from talking to community members that BirdSleuth is a well-known and well-valued program that has been taking place for 12 years now thanks to the efforts of our wonderful partners, the San Vito Bird Club (who passed the baton to FCEA in 2022). Nonetheless, we want to make sure that it is not taken for granted. We greatly value the support that comes from our donors to make this program happen, and we want to ensure those funds go to good use.
