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A Brief Global Big Day Summary

/ Seth Inman / Leave a comment

Bush Thick-Knee, Brisbane, AU. Photo by Brian Sullivan, via eBird.

On Saturday, while visiting Chicago, I was only able to get a very short amount of time birding for a total of seven species. In the meantime, over twelve-thousand people around the world, across about 110 countries, saw 5,892 species (reported so far, and including the paltry seven I saw).

The photo on the left is of a Bush Thick-Knee, an Australian species that was the first seen during the Global Big Day. In Panama, the Lab’s Team Sapsucker got 320 species, and in New Jersey, at the World Series of Birding, the Cornell Redheads defended their championship title from last year.

One of the species I saw on Saturday was the Chimney Swift, a bird I hadn’t seen before, so that was exciting! If you want to follow more about the Global Big Day, check out eBird’s page!

Global Big Day

/ Organikos / 2 Comments

Word bird map artwork by Team Redhead member Luke Seitz, a Bartels Science Illustration Intern at the Cornell Lab.

Team Sapsucker, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s competitive birding team, has participated in the World Series of Birding for quite some time. We’ve even had a couple of the Lab’s student participants, Team Redhead, as contributors to the blog. Over the last several years, Team Sapsucker has been breaking or coming very close to the US record for a Big Day — the most bird species seen or heard in 24 hours — but this year, ten days from now in fact, the team will be in Panama instead of staying in the southwestern US! Here’s what Chris Wood, captain of Team Sapsucker and eBird’s project leader, has to say:

The time of year has come when migratory birds cross continents and even hemispheres to return home to their nesting grounds. Because long-distance migrants face many hazards during their journeys, Team Sapsucker, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s top birding team, has chosen to spend 24 hours of non-stop birding in Panama, a region critical to the travels of migratory birds in the Western Hemisphere.

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If You Happen To Be Anywhere In the World…

/ Organikos / 2 Comments

Our interest in birds shouldn’t come as a surprise to readers of these pages. With contributors Seth and Justin on a Smithsonian Expedition in search of the Golden Swallow, over 3 years of our Bird of the Day feature from many talented photographers, and a plethora of posts about the subject, we assume it’s obvious.

Prior to 2013 the Great Backyard Bird Count focussed on North America, but that year it went global and the results were amazing! Continue reading →

A Birding Blast From the Past

/ Seth Inman / 2 Comments

Blue-crowned Motmot at Xandari

Trending on the web nowadays is the tagline “throwback Thursday,” or #tbt, used to recall old photos or experiences with an interesting or humorous sense of nostalgia. As James and I spend most early mornings going out around Xandari to explore the trails and document the avifauna we can find, I am reminded of similar excursions I made with my friend and fellow Tomás de Berlanga English teacher Mari, in Mindo, Ecuador.

About two years ago on the dot, Mari and I saw an amazing group of birds in one of Costa Rica’s great competitors in terms of birding hotspots. As you can see from my first post about manakins, two years ago I did not consider myself a birder — now, as James and I add our observations around Xandari to eBird every day, my opinion may have changed slightly Continue reading →