World Series of Birding - 2019

After many years of not competing in the New Jersey World Series of Birding contest, I was roped into participating this year. In years past, our little gang of women birders have participated in the contest but only in Cape May county. You may remember this post: https://www.phillybirdnerd.net/2014/05/world-series-2014-new-high.html 

This year, a fellow DVOC club member and friend asked if I would participate on the 1,000 Birds team to do a full state run. Why not? The team consists of Ken Walsh, Marc Chelemer and a few other guys that couldn't make it this year so they filled in with me, Harvey and Nicole Koeltzow. Marc, Ken and Harvey are all birding friends. You may remember Nicole from my trip to St. Paul Island in Alaska last September. She did a big year and won with 774 birds. We helped her get  #750 White-tailed Sea Eagle and a few others. You might remember this post: https://www.phillybirdnerd.net/2018/09/birds-of-st-paul.html Nicole is pictured in the Sea Eagle photo.

Doing the full state competition is really tough. You start up north in the Great Swamp at midnight and bird all night and day and end up in the south at Stipson's Island marsh at 10 PM or later. We put hundreds of miles on Harvey's mini van and counted 180 bird species in total. Don't confuse this contest with "birding". It isn't birding. It is identifying and checking off bird species. We rarely stopped to look at any birds. We mainly listened for their call or caught a glimpse of them before moving on to our next target and destination.

Our first bird was Great-horned Owl at midnight sitting atop a dead tree in the great swamp. We could see the silhouette against the night sky. We heard many other marsh birds including Virginia Rail, Least Bittern, Solitary Sandpiper ( a shorebird that happened to call out in the night ), Woodcock and then heard a King Rail which is an uncommon bird. We traveled to various marshy destinations until sunrise. My best bird of the night was Eastern Screech Owl which I called in by imitating its "whinny call". I whinnied and it whinnied back! Check. Let's move on.

Honestly, the morning was a blur of stopping at this lake or in these woods listening for birds. I was driving the van. Ken was navigating. Turn left, turn right, go straight, STOP! I had no idea where we were but Ken and Marc had the route planned out to the minute. We did a pretty good job of staying on time until the afternoon.

Another of my best birds of the day was Common Raven. We drove up to the highest point in NJ to look for them at the nest site on the AT&T cell tower but they were not there. We stopped at a parking area at the bottom of the mountain where the road crew has piles of stone stored. We were looking for warblers but didn't see any. I had to pee so I ducked behind one of the stone piles. Everyone else did the same. With my pants down, I spotted 2 Ravens soaring overhead and yelled out to the others. All 4 of us got the Raven with our pants down! Check. Let's move on.

You'll notice the lack of photos in this post. There is no time for photos when you are in the competition. I did manage to get a shot of another bird that I found - White-crowned Sparrow.

White-crowned Sparrow

We ended the day with 180 species and came in 2nd place. We got a trophy. That's me on the left, then Nicole, Ken, Eric Stiles and David LaPuma from NJ Audubon who presented the trophy.

The first place team had 207 species. That team is made up of Cornell University Ornithology majors and they win every year. Maybe next year we'll break the 200 mark.

We are raising money for the DVOC Interns Fund. If you are inclined to donate, here is a link:
http://dvoc.org/Committees/Interns/Interns.htm Please enter 1,000 Birds in the comment section. Or, send me a check.

World Series 2014 - A New High

Frankly, there were a few new things this year including a new team member.  Unfortunately, Barbara and Tara couldn't make it this year but Harvey stepped up in their place. Unbeknownst to Harvey, he was going to be on the team anyway we just had to find the right way to hook him. We used some good bait. No, not the kind of bait that women use on men. The kind that birders use on other birders. The kind that fun people use on other fun people. We used the oldest ploy - the "we're shorthanded and need help" ploy. He never saw it coming. He certainly didn't see it on Friday when I texted him about scouting shorebirds. He didn't see it at 3 AM on Saturday when he picked us up in HIS VAN!

WSB - Philly Bird Nerds 2014

He started to get wary when we gave him the camo bucket hat that Barbara and Di got him with the team logo on it. I think he started to so come to his senses around 3 PM. He was delirious by 7. We ended the day at 9 M with a new high total - 147. Di and Lori were both terrific all day. They had plenty of energy, kept Harvey laughing so he would keep driving, picked out a ton of birds AND didn't want to quit until we got an owl - which we finally did at 8:30 PM.

As usual, the day before and the day after the World Series was great. Great weather and great birds. The actual day was overcast with wind and periods of rain which made tallying the birds difficult.

We started slow in the wee hours and then picked up steam with a ton of warblers at Higbee. On any other day, we would have been tickled but on the Big Day the only thing we think about is what we missed. We didn't get Bald Eagle. We didn't get Killdeer. We didn't get Cedar Waxwing. We didn't get 2 ducks that we found easily the day before. But we did try new things (ask the others about 5 Hour Energy), we had a ton of laughs and got a new teammate ( oh yeah, we'll rope him in again next year).

You'll notice no photos from the day. The pace was too fast, we got alot of birds by hearing them rather than seeing them, and the weather was terrible. Here are some photos from Sunday morning which was an awesome migration day, awesome weather, and cooperative birds.

Indigo Bunting (with floss?)

Prairie Warbler

Scarlet Tanager

Feel free to sponsor the team with a donation. Send me a check. We will forward them on to a conservation fund later. We haven't picked one yet but we will soon.

Cinco de Mayo - Only 5 Days to World Series

May is finally here and yet I'm wearing a jacket. We just opened the shore house this weekend. Normally, we would have been down there already but not in this cold. The birds are coming - slowly. The nerds were in Cape May this weekend and had some new arrivals. Yellow ones like Prairie Warbler.

Prairie Warbler

And this odd ball - singing female Oriole. I didn't think females sang but here she is.

Female Oriole - singing? 

And blue ones like this Indigo Bunting. I found this guy hanging on to some tall grass. He is so brilliant!

Indigo Bunting

This Blue Grosbeak is supposed to be just as blue as the bunting but - not so much. He must be a young male who hasn't gotten all of his blue feathers yet but he certainly had his song going. He sat there singing away. What lady would cozy up to this guy?

Blue Grosbeak

Another blue bird is this Bluebird - get it? Blue bird, Bluebird? Huh? Here is he singing away at Villas.

Bluebird

Along with the Bluebirds, we also saw an Osprey show. We watched a pair of Osprey "dance" around in the air above the lake. This one crossed paths with a Purple Martin. You can tell its an Osprey by the pattern under the wings.

Osprey and Purple Martin

He swung around and looked right into the lens! He looks pissed but Ospreys always look pissed. They never look happy even when they are dancing.

Osprey

 As for early scouting for World Series of Birding - one Red-necked Grebe is still hanging around. I hope he stays put for another 5 days before flying north. He's a beaut!

Red-necked Grebe

Get those checkbooks out. We have an unusual team this year - me, Diane, Lori and a new addition - Harvey!  We expect to get alot of birds for the competition and hope that you can support us with a pledge for bird conservation!  More scouting reports to come.

World Series of Birding - 2013

This is our 3rd year doing the World Series of Birding (WSB) - the one day contest to see as many bird species as possible in New Jersey in order to raise money for conservation charity. 

I spent a few days scouting for the Big Day with my team plus with the DVOC Loons. Friday was awesome! We saw a ton of birds including 5 "life birds" like Red Phalarope and Gray-cheeked Thrush plus a dozen warblers and other "First of Year" birds too. We also helped the Loons stake out a Barn Owl. 

Scouting at Higbee

We were all set to top last year's total of 144 birds. We went to bed early in anticipation of starting our big day at 2:30 AM.  Imagine how disappointed we were when it started to rain just as we left.

Early morning

You would assume that we would improve our total each year. You know, learn something new that would help us see more birds or improve our route through Cape May county or pin down locations of some of the birds that we should "get".  Unfortunately, Mother Nature doesn't care about the preparation and knowledge that we have accumulated over the past 3 years.  The one thing that we didn't really have a plan for was rain.  We planned for mosquitoes by taping screens to the car windows.  We didn't plan on having to drive through knee deep puddles to retrieve the screen after it was pulled off the car by an attack sticker bush.

Screen retrieval

 We planned to use our iPhones to look up info on birds and directions to locations.  We didn't plan to use them to look up Doppler.  We didn't plan on wearing rain gear and having to find birds through downpours.  This is one shot of our day.  The blue dot is us, the green is rain. The yellow is heavy rain. The red is severe rain. . .

There were a few breaks in the weather.

Nerds and dogs birding Cox Hall Creek

 But then the rain started again and chased us back to the car for cover. We even had to wait for the rain to slow down to dash to the bathroom at the Visitor Center.

Binoculars are no use in torrential rain

 If it seems like I'm complaining - it's because I am. We do this for our personal fun and also to help raise money for conservation charities.  Having higher total birds theoretically means more funds raised, but also means that we are getting better at this stuff. 

We ended the day as it began - in the dark with threatening skies and rain.  We ended with 3 new birds at the Meadows - Woodcock, Virginia Rail and Green-winged Teal which brought the total for the day to 136 which is 6 fewer than last year but 36 more that I thought we would get while sitting in the car waiting out the rain. 

Clouds over the Meadows at dusk

We should have had more birds this year.  We should have done better.  We did have a lot of laughs despite the rain. We will do better next year.  I hope you pledge something.  Let me know if you want to contribute something to NJ Audubon or DVOC youth.

Big Day Results

I'll begin by saying that the Bird Nerds did indeed have a Big Day.  Unfortunately, so did the 8th graders. 

The scouting went well. We planned our route, then we re-routed based on intel gathered at the "swap meet".  The swap meet is a meeting held on the Thursday before the contest for all teams to swap scouting reports.  This year's report also included a weather report from Dave LaPuma who runs the woodcreeper.com website stating that winds would be perfect for migration and that birds would be arriving at Higbee beach on Friday night. Guess who else went to the swap meet?  Yup, the 8th graders.

Our Big Day started at 3:30 AM (slightly later due to lower G.I. distress by your truly due to an untimely virus).  We pulled up at Higbee Beach at 4 AM and sat and listened for a Barred Owl to hoot for about 5 minutes when 2 other cars pulled up - another team.  They all got out of the cars and walked out into the field.  We all looked at each other and then got out of the car too. We figured they knew something that we didn't know about the Barred Owl that we were waiting to hear.  After another 5 minutes, the other team came walking past us out of the field.  We said "good morning" as they walked past, then one of them yelled "its the Nerds!".  It was Patty and her team.  They didn't really know what they were doing and they didn't hear the owl, but they were going to another location to listen. We heard the owl hooting about 5 minutes after they left the field. HA.

That was the first time our team got a Barred Owl on the Big Day.  Things only got better from there. We were scheduled to be at Higbee until 8 AM, but we left at 7 because we already had 58 species tallied.  58 species in 3 hours - 90 minutes of those were in the dark. By 9 AM we already had 2 other stops under our belts, the dogs were home and fed, the cat was fed, and 12 more species were racked up.  We were really on a roll. 

Each team member contributed to our tally in different ways. We got at least a dozen species through one member or another looking, listening, or re-routing us which really showed the team effort.  I'll let them tell you their stories in their own time.

By suppertime, we had surpassed our previous total by quite a few birds, but still didn't have Red-tailed Hawk which should have been easy.  We also didn't have Kingfisher, Green Heron, or Black-Crowned Night Heron.  If we could get those birds, we would  break the 140 mark. We got those birds and ended the day with 144 species - 23 more than last year!

But still 19 fewer than those 8th graders.  Bitter?  No. Do I seem bitter?

Pre Game

We are all fired up for the Big Day tomorrow.  We have been scouting for a few days now and we think we have a good a good game plan.  We will start at 4 AM at Higbee beach - sitting in the car listening for a Barred Owl and any other birds that are chirping at that hour of the morning.  We spent a few hours there this morning (not before dawn) and got alot of birds.  We can only hope for the same tomorrow. 

It has already been exhausting, so we are off to bed in a few minutes.  I thought I would share a few colorful photos with you to get you ready for spring.  This guy was singing full force at Tinicum on Tuesday.

Yellow Warbler

Here is Indigo Bunting.  There are alot of these guys on our World Series "route".  They sing really loud from almost every field in the area.  We are sure to get one of these for our list.

 Indigo Bunting

Another really colorful bird that has arrived from his winter home is the Summer Tanager.  These birds turn greenish yellow in winter and then shed all feathers and go red for summer.  We like to think they go Phillies Red!

Summer Tanager

Wish us luck by commenting on the blog!

WSB Scouting So Far -

 - Sucks!  The Nerds + 1 hit Cape May county this past weekend to scout for the World Series of Birding.  Judging from the photo below, how do you think we did?

Do you see any birds?  Sun?  Warm weather?  Southerly winds that would bring birds up to NJ?  No you don't.  Let's dissect this photo.  You see (barely) me and Barbara.  We both have jackets on.  We are obviously struggling to move toward the camera.  Sand is blowing in streams around our legs.  Even though we are a few yards from the ocean, you can't see it due to the fog.  This is Stone Harbor beach where we should have seen thousands of shorebirds and a Peregrine Falcon.  We saw exactly 6 Oystercatchers and a few Herring Gulls.  That's it.  We walked a mile down and a mile back.

Poor Patty.  She was our + 1 this weekend.  She is on another team this year but we dragged her along scouting with us as a nice gesture since her other teammates were out of town on business and couldn't scout.  Well, I guess her team will be out done by the 8th graders too unless her teammates come through with some better scouting than the BirdNerds.

We will be scouting again on Wed (supposed to pour rain all day), Thurs (rain part of the day and windy), and Fri ( still windy).  Wish us luck.

By the way, this does not get you out of pledging to support NJ Audubon.  It just means that we probably won't win again. 

It's That Time of Year Again . . .

 

The World Series of WHAT?

The World Series of BIRDING, that's what.

Here is an excerpt from "Opposable Chums" - a film about the event by Jason Kessler:

"Equal parts scavenger hunt, science expedition, and endurance test, The World Series of Birding is also a fundraiser, generating millions of dollars for conservation. The more bird species tallied, the more money raised.

• One team mounts a paramilitary operation replete with infrared scopes and GPS devices.
• Another team does the event on foot, jogging almost 50 miles.
• After scouting for weeks, one team has the entire 24 hours planned literally to the minute.
• A Seniors team counts only the birds that fly by the bench it sits on all day.

Past participants have included some of the most renowned birders in the world, such as Roger Tory Peterson, David Allen Sibley, Kenn Kaufman, and Pete Dunne. "

As for us, the Philly Bird Nerds will be participating again this year trying to beat those 8th graders again.  We are limiting ourselves to Cape May County again this year and hope to get 140 species.  We are raising money for NJ Audubon again this year. If we get enough sponsors, we may split the money and send some to another organization (hint, hint). We raised $260 last year.  We would really like to raise at least that much this year and are really hoping to raise more.  I will send instructions for sponsorship in another post.  For now, just start saving your pennies.

We are scouting beginning this weekend for nesting birds so that we can "pin them down" as they say.

Barbara and I are most interested in owls right now.  We haven't been able to get Barred or Screech owl in past years, so we have been out at night listening for them.  We have a lead on a Screech Owl down in West Cape May and will be heading there this weekend to listen again.  We are also considering turning the tide in our favor by hanging a Screech Owl nest box in the "wetlands" across the street from the Blue House for next year. What's wrong with that?  I didn't read any rules about that.

More updates later.

Scouting is the Most Fun

The "Big Day" of the World Series of Birding is fun, but we don't really get to do much bird watching. It's more bird counting, then running off to the next place, the next bird, the next tweet. We like to actually see the colorful warblers, and see the breeding plumage and see the behaviors rather than just hear a song, or a tweet or a whistle and say - "oh, that's a Blackpoll Warbler" or " Didjya hear that? - Summer Tanager".


We spent a few days leading up to the Big Day scouting the areas hoping that the birds we saw would still be there on Saturday. We did a pretty good job of note taking, we tried some new spots, and we even got a Microwave at a yard sale for $5!


Here is the best photo that I have of a Common Yellowthroat - ever. This guy popped up at the Cape May Lighthouse Hawk Watch Platform during our scouting while we watching a Yellow-billed Cuckoo pick tent caterpillars out of the cherry tree. We got to count this species again for the Big Day on Saturday. I am telling myself it was the same bird.

We ARE Smarter than 5th Graders!

Whew, we completed our 2nd annual World Series of Birding this Saturday and beat those pesky 5th graders. We got 121 species (5 more than last year) while the elementary school children only got 118. HA. We showed them That's the good news. The bad news is that the 8th graders beat us again. They got something like 143.

Philly Bird Nerds at the Awards Breakfast (no, we didn't get an award)

We started at 2:55 AM and ended after 9:15 PM and had a lot of laughs along the way. When you do a "Big Day" contest like this, you see the same groups of birders and teams at various locations throughout the day. We tend to amuse ourselves by giving them names. Like "No Stripes", the couple that has the same Mini Cooper as Diane, but no stripes on the car which doesn't makes it look as nice as Di's. And "Marge and Judy" the 2 women that I tried to descibe the location of the Phoebe nest that made Diane tease me for the rest of the day so much that Lori almost peed her pants. And "Those Crazy Bikers" - the group of guys who did the whole day on bicycles. We vowed to run them over with the Suburban but gave up on that idea after the parents of the one guy showed us Norther Harrier at Stipson's Island Road (and took the photo above).

We have no doubt that they have names for us too. Especially on this Big Day. You see, I had a genius idea last week to quell the onslaught of mosquitos that we endured last year - screens for the car windows. Yup. We put screens on the windows of the Suburban. My genius idea was to use duct tape to secure screen on the outside of the truck. The plan got even better when we talked to the guy at Napa Auto Parts who sold us "automotive body work" tape which will not damage the paing and easy to remove.

nothing but class for us

We also got a life bird for all of the team members - a Parasitic Jaeger that was chasing terns around off of Cape May Point. We didn't get a lot of common warblers including Northern Parula that we were seeing and hearing every day since mid-April even in the middle of Philly. We didn't get Cedar Waxwing. And we didn't get our "signature" bird - the Black-throated Blue Warbler (enlarge our team photo above to view the logo). We did manage to get Great Horned Owl this year. We almost didn't get Bald Eagle which are a given along Delaware Bay any other day.

I want to thank all who made the day a big success including the Nerds:
Tara who sacrificed her birthday for scouting on Friday
Di who limped through the day still recuperating from knee surgery
Lori who suffered the day without her beloved warblers
Barbara who endured the most scouting with me
Connie who had to miss most of the day due to a funeral and showed up for the end at 7:30 PM

Big shout out to Barb Kolb who graciously designed and embroidered our new team shirts on short notice. Thanks Barb, at least we looked good at the Awards Breakfast.

Huge thanks to Marleen, Sheila and the rest of the WSB support staff/volunteers for making this year another fun event.

At last, the final thanks goes to you, the readers and pledgers. Please send a check made out to NJ Audubon in the amount of whatever you pledged per bird x 121 to me. I'll collect and forward the whole lot to them.

World Series of Birding

The nerds are busy. We are in the midst of closing on the Villas houses, plus gearing up for our second trip to the World Series of Birding which will be held on May 14th this year. We have entered in Cape May county only in order to reduce drive time and increase our chances of getting to hotspots multiple times throughout the day. I have been organizing the spreadsheet this week and using the Internet to track sightings of non-migrant species in order to pinpoint some locations.

Next week, the scouting begins in person. We will be driving around the county to get a feel for the amount of time it takes to get from site to site as well as whether reliable birds can be found. One thing we learned from last year is that we need to pay close attention to the tides in order to get shorebirds, gulls, and terns at the sites that we should expect them.

We hope to raise $500 or more for NJ Audubon with the help of your pledges. Here's how it works: you pledge a certain amount per bird (say 50 cents) and then we try to get as many birds as possible in order to increase the amount of your donation while trying to beat the 5th graders from last year. We will report back to you on Sunday to let you know how much you owe. Here is a link to the PLEDGE FORM. Please fill it out and send to me (linda at npowerpa.org - replace the "at" with @) We already have a few pledges, so thanks!

Palm Sunday

After the wild weather that we had last night, the sun came out this morning and off we went. Roxy and I headed out to Pennypack Trust - one of our local patches - to see what the wind blew in last night. We ended up with 41 species including so many Palm Warblers that we stopped counting. I entered 40 into eBird. Our FOS Brown Thrasher and Northern Parula too.

This morning was a perfect outing to get us excited about our second World Series of Birding effort that is coming up on May 14th. That's right, the Bird Nerds are entering the WSB again. We are not going to let those 5th graders beat us again this year! We promise. Although it's a statewide contest, we have decided to enter as a LGA - Limited Geographic Area - and only bird Cape May County. We think we can get a lot of birds in the county and it will cut down on the driving time as well as keep us close to our new house(s) so we can pop in for food and bathroom if needed.

In fact, we are so confident that we can identify more birds this year, that we are even using the event to fundraise for Cape May Bird Observatory. We hope that you will pledge a few cents per species that we identify on May 14th. Our goal is set at 130 species this year. You could also pledge a few dollars for our overall effort by pledging a fixed amount for the effort regardless of how many species we see. Here is a link to the pledge form. Please print it out, fill it in, and email to me (linda at npowerpa.org - replace the at with @). Pledge Form In fact, get friends, family, coworkers to pledge too.

We will be updating you on our scouting and plans in the coming weeks.

We Weren't Last

But we were damned close to last place in the World Series of Birding.  The Seniors beat us.  The teams that did only the county beat us. The team that did only Ocean City beat us.  All of the school kids beat us. But we didn't come in last place.  A few teams actually had fewer birds than we had.

First, let's say that the winning teams (yes, there was a tie for first place) had 228 species which is off from other years when they had over 230.  Now, let's tell you that one of the winning teams failed to see White-breasted Nuthatch - a common bird that we have at our feeders.  They also failed to get Cattle Egret which you can normally get at 80 MPH while driving down the Parkway.  (click here to see the results)

Just like the winners, we failed to see the Nuthatch and the Cattle Egret.  We also missed 110 other birds that they got.  We ended up with 116 for the day.  We started our day at 4:30 AM and ended at 8:30 PM when we turned our list in at the firehouse.  We had alot of fun and saw some great birds including a life bird for me - Gull-billed Tern.  Everyone contributed in spotting birds and keeping the day fun.

Next year, we have agreed to do it again but stay in Cape May County. There will be less driving, and we will still have a shot at 140ish birds.  I think we can get 130.  We are also going to get T-shirts and sponsors.

Here They Come!

To quote Tom Petty - "The way-ay-ting is the hardest part".  Well, the waiting seems to be over.  Warblers are finally moving through our little part of the world.  This morning, I saw 7 Blackpoll Warblers at Lemon Hill.  That is more than I have seen in total all of my years of birding.  Plus, Connie and I had a singing Blackpoll at Pennypack Trust last night. And that needs to be added to the Blackpoll warbler from Higbee beach on Saturday. 

We met several birders who said that this is unusual.  One guy told us that he lives in Allentown area and they call the Blackpoll warbler "the kiss of death" because they are the last warblers to migrate. When you see Blackpolls, then migration is over.  Well, not this year.  It seems that they are coming through earlier than usual.

Along with the Blackpolls, Barbara and I had the first Black-throated Blue warblers, Parulas, plenty of Yellow-rumps, a lingering Palm, and a beautiful male Cape May warbler this morning.

Get your binoculars and get out there!

Did I mention that we entered the World Series of Birding?  Seems like we should have entered a regional competition and won it in order to be eligible for the "big day".  But, no.  We just signed up.  Any schmuck can enter apparently.  We decided to limit our day's effort to just Cape May, Cumberland and Atlantic counties in order to cut down the driving.  We made an initial site survey last Saturday to test the driving and I now think that it is possible for us to get 100+ species in one day effort by concentrating on the following Hotspots:

• Turkey Point - Glades
• Heislerville WMA
• Stimpson's Beach
• Jake's Landing Road
• Reed's Beach
• Belleplain State Park
• Villas WMA
• Cape May Point State Park - Hawk Watch and trails
• The Meadows - Nature Conservancy
• Concrete Ship
• Higbee Beach
• Rhea Farm (Beanery)
• Nummy Island

It seems like alot, but some of these sites are concentrated in Cape May and do not require alot of driving.  Stay tuned.