Board Treasurer
Peele Island Bird Observatory

Pelee Island Bird Observatory (PIBO) is an internationally recognized NGO devoted to the study and observation of migratory birds on Pelee Island.  The vision for PIBO began 20 years ago after a migration-monitoring pilot study at Fish Point Provincial Nature Reserve documented 192 species and banded 3,450 birds on the island.

Located at the western end of Lake Erie, Pelee Island is a global Key Biodiversity Area, designated by BirdLife International and the Canadian Minister of the Environment. The most southerly inhabited land mass in Canada, Pelee Island is also a vital bird migration stepping-stone, set midway between Ohio to the south and Ontario to the north. Each spring and fall, millions of birds on two major flyways migrate through this “pinch point,”. Hundreds of thousands of birds land to feed and rest before they continue their journey across the lake.

As a result of its location and its range of habitats—coastal sand dunes, wetlands, lakes, freshwater marsh, abandoned and fallow farmland, savanna, limestone alvars, and Carolinan deciduous forest—Pelee Island is rich in both migratory and resident birds: a total of 314 species have now been recorded, and more than 150 species have been spotted in a single day during spring and fall migration.

PIBO is a not-for-profit corporation and registered charity in Canada.  The founding patrons are authors and bird enthusiasts Graeme Gibson and Margaret Atwood who actively and generously supported PIBO’s mission.

PIBO's work

Since 2004, PIBO has vastly increased knowledge of migrating and resident Pelee Island birds. Each year from April to November, our staff conducts intensive migration-monitoring research and breeding-bird studies on Pelee Island, as well as a daily dawn-walk bird count. And we don’t only study birds: we also conduct dragonfly counts and monitor the annual migration of Ontario’s monarch butterflies on their way to the mountains of Michoacán, Mexico.

The work of PIBO is anchored in the following three programs: 

1) Research: each year we conduct as many as a dozen research projects, including Saw-whet owl and Prothonotary warbler monitoring. PIBO’s banding station in Fish Point Provincial Nature Reserve is open to the public and to school groups in the spring and fall. Since its inception, PIBO has banded and recorded the vital statistics of more than 50,000 birds.

2) Outreach: we conduct extensive outreach programs, such as Backpacks for Birding, which donates backpacks filled with binoculars and bird guides to libraries in the Windsor area, including local Indigenous resource centres and facilities for medically challenged children. In June 2022, Windsor achieved the Bird Friendly City certification, being the 16th city to be designated with this certification. Also, in 2022, BIPO inaugurated The Graeme Gibson Prismáticos Project, which collects well-loved binoculars in Canada for distribution to schools and conservationists in Mexico.

3) Education: education has always been part of PIBO’s mandate. We developed a permanent bird display at the Pelee Island Heritage Centre and education programs that have reached thousands of school children throughout southwestern Ontario. Our 15-minute educational videos about bird migration, bird banding, conservation, and species at risk continues to open children to birdlife—work that was recognized by a Conservation Award for Environmental Education in Essex County.

For more information, please visit our annual reports here.