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World Series of Birding Report 2005
By Andy Bankert
On Saturday May 14, 2005 I competed in the World Series of Birding in New Jersey. I arrived at the High Point Inn late on Wednesday night and scouted the northern end of the route on Thursday and Friday. My team consisted of me, Ross Gallardy from Pennsylvania, Tom Johnson from Pennsylvania, and Zach Baer from Maryland. Thursday and Friday were a little discouraging when high winds and cold temperatures caused birds to remain silent. This weather also allowed us to find some migrants which probably would not stick around for "game day." Nikon and the Space Coast Birding Festival were the team's sponsors, and the adult Nikon team helped us a lot in scouting. Little did we know that most of this information was also shared with almost every other team scouting the northern end. As we watched most of our information on birds go out to other teams, we knew that in order to win we would have to be fast and find back up spots for species. At one of our final stops in scouting on Friday we ran into Will Russell who told us about four birds which would play a big role for us in the north. When the whole team met up near the Great Swamp on Friday night we kicked around a few ideas before going to sleep. The main one was to skip Ridge Road which contained three main birds. We knew we could get Purple Finch in several other locations, and we lucked into a Hermit Thrush near our Magnolia Warbler, and Will informed us about a grouse that had been booming at 5:08 in Wantage which was also near a lake that had a Hooded Merganser. The discussion of the route continued and some phone calls were made, but I decided to get some sleep before the big day.
| PRESS RELEASE FROM: Nikon July 13, 2005
NIKON/DVOC LAGERHEAD SHRIKES WIN AGAIN!Six years equals five wins for the Nikon Sport Optics' Delaware Valley Ornithological Club Lagerhead Shrikes. The Shrikes obtained this unprecedented win on May 14th, 2005 at the New Jersey Audubon Society's 22nd Annual World Series of Birding. With the prestigious Urner-Stone Cup resting safely with their club for another year, the Shrikes find themselves already preparing for next years event.Finding and identifying a total of 222 species, the Shrikes bested the competitive Bushnell/CT Audubon/New Canaan Nature Center Woodpeckers by 6 species. Shrike team members included veterans Captain Paul Guris and Mike Fritz. Also joining the team for the second year was Bert Filemyr and Eric Pilotte.
The Nikon sponsored Space Coast Coastal Cuckoos youth team was also a new addition in 2005. In this, their first year at the World Series of Birding, the Coastal Cuckoos spotted an amazing 212 species, besting even veteran teams such as the Zeiss Sports Optics/Cape May Bird Observatory Team Zeiss.
Consisting of members Zach Baer, Andy Bankert, Ross Gallerdy and Tom Johnson, the Nikon Space Coast Coastal Cuckoos took home top honors in the World Series of Birding's high school division. Look for them to come on strong in 2006 as they prepare to defend their title against the second place Birders World/Bushnell Bird Bounties. The World Series of Birding was founded in 1984 by Pete Dunne and the New Jersey Audubon Society as a 24-hour event to raise money for bird protection and conservation. After 21 years, the World Series of Birding boasts worldwide participation, multiple corporate sponsors and has raised millions of dollars in the name of conservation. Nikon Sport Optics is proud to sponsor the DVOC Lagerhead Shrikes and the Space Coast Coastal Cuckoos in such a worthy cause.
The Nikon Teams Nikon Inc. is the U.S. distributor of Nikon sports and recreational optics, world-renowned Nikon 35mm cameras, digital cameras, speedlights and accessories, Nikkor lenses and electronic imaging products. For more information on Nikon's full line of Binoculars, Spotting Scopes and Rangefinders, contact: Nikon Sport Optics, 1300 Walt Whitman Rd., Melville, NY 11747-3064. 1-800-248-6846. www.nikonsportoptics.com |
We pulled into the grasslands of Wantage about an hour before we could expect to get any of our targets. We did not want to run around waiting for stuff to call, so we decided to go to our Vesper Sparrow spot which was on top of a hill. This proved to be a good area for night migrants. Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Gray-cheeked Thrush, and Horned Lark were ticked off, and at 4:20 a Grasshopper Sparrow began to sing. When the migrants began to thin out around 4:35 we moved down to where the Vesper Sparrow had been singing earlier in the week. Right at 4:40 the bird sang and we ran back to the car. Next we tried out that grouse that had been booming earlier in the week. As 5:00 approached we had ticked off several new species, but nothing we wouldn't get later in the day. 5:05- no grouse, but American Woodcocks were calling. 5:06- Thump thump thump, the booming of the grouse, then we ran to our car. Two minutes early and we headed for that pond for the Hooded Merganser. After only a minute or two the bird flew over, so we jumped back in the car and headed for Savannah Sparrow which would be our last bird for the grasslands. While we were listening a Kestrel flew by, two team members heard a Kingfisher fly by, and several distant cars honked their horns to get Wild Turkeys to respond. Our sparrow finally sang, and since we were a little ahead of schedule, we drove down to pick up Willow Flycatcher. Unlike Friday morning, the bird was singing its song "Fitz-bew".
Our next stop was High Point State Park. At the AT&T tower we picked up our reliable Raven, Purple Finch, and bonus Cedar Waxwing. We drove through the state park and rarely stopped. We picked out Canada Warbler, both Waterthrushes, Worm-eating Warbler, and Wilson's Warbler by songs. One stop in a campground produced White-breasted Nuthatch and several woodpeckers, another campground had Red-breasted Nuthatch, Nashville Warbler, Brown Creeper, and Golden-crowned Kinglet. At the end of Sunrise Mountain Rd, we ran into the Nikon team and another team. We pulled out Rusty Blackbird and Lincoln's Sparrow, but missed Olive-sided Flycatcher which other teams had.
In Stokes Forest we ticked off an easy Cooper's Hawk on nest, Black-throated Green Warbler, and Broad-winged Hawk on a nest. I am not sure of the order of a lot of the next few places, but we hit Culver's Lake and identified Warbling Vireo by song (our driver had heard about 10 before that), Yellow-rumped Warbler, and American Black Duck. A side road that has produced several decent birds in the past gave us our White-throated Sparrow and Black-throated Blue Warbler. Van Ness Road held our Golden-winged Warbler and Blue-winged Warbler. We drove to a Magnolia Warbler spot where others had heard one singing earlier in the week, and with our luck the bird was singing. Down the road a little ways we took a bathroom break and ticked off Bald Eagle and the Hermit Thrush we found in scouting. The Common Mergansers were off the bridge where the Zeiss team had them, so we were able to cut out a six minute run to a fairly unreliable spot. In order to save time we moved a small road block that had not been there in scouting. After a few unsuccessful stops we ended up at a Cliff Swallow barn. We think another team had spotted a Goshawk, but all we saw was a flying Red-tailed Hawk. Our last stop in the north was for Winter Wren. After we heard the song we ran to our car, only to hear a team yell back at us telling us that it wasn't actually the wren that was singing. One of their team members was giving the song trying to get a bird to respond. We knew of one a little further down the road, and got that one.
We crossed I-80 at 9:36 with 135 species. Our next stop would be for Red-headed Woodpeckers at Yard Road. They were calling and a bonus Bobwhite called once for us. Now it was time for the long and boring ride down to the southern part of our route.
Once we made our way to the south, we started picking up day birds again. Birch Creek had Pied-billed Grebe, Common Moorhen, and American Coot all really close to each other. There was also a Great Egret and Orchard Oriole in the area. A quick stop at our Pectoral Sandpiper spot got us our Sandpiper as well as Eastern Meadowlark, Spotted Sandpiper, and Bobolink. There were also Glossy Ibis and Snow Geese on the drive to this spot. We missed a Sandhill Crane that had been seen earlier in the week. Mannington Marsh had the Caspian Tern which we had in scouting. We made a quick stop at a Barn Owl box, since we missed that in the north. A stop in Dividing Creek had our final three warblers of the day (Pine, Yellow-throated, and Prothonotary). Unlike last year, we scouted the warblers that were singing in the afternoon. Gravely Hill Road had Summer Tanager singing at the entrance, as well as a Carolina Chickadee.
Our next few stops were for shorebirds, so our day list really grew. At Bivalve we ticked off most of our easy species and also picked out a Wilson's Phalarope. Down the road a little ways we ran into the Cornell team and found a Shoveler, Green-winged Teal, Red Knot, and Ruddy Turnstone. It seemed like we were missing lots of shorebirds, but White-rumped Sandpiper was the only one our team was worried about. We heard White-eyed Vireo and saw Blue Grosbeak on the way to our next stop which had White-rumped Sandpiper. It also had both Night-herons and Blue-winged Teal. Turkey Point had Harrier, but it was harder to find than we thought. We made it to Cape May County around 4 pm.
In Cape May County we made a quick stop for Siskin, which failed. We were lacking Hummingbird, so we went for the one on a nest. After scoping the nest we were off to our Cattle Egret spot. The Egrets were not there, nor were they at our backup spot. Once we got south of the canal, we hit Poverty Beach. This late in the day it was surprising to pull out six new day birds: Royal, Least, and Common Terns, Piping Plover, Sanderling, and Common Loon. The plover was our 200th species of the day. The concrete ship had the Great Cormorant, but no Purple Sandpiper. Our last stop south of the canal was a jetty where Purple Sandpipers had been. No luck there (but we did get our day Oystercatcher), so it was time to go back north towards Stone Harbor and Nummies Island. A short stop near a coastal marsh gave us our Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed Sparrow. A drawbridge was up, so we pulled off the road to look at the water. We found Brant and our only Purple Sandpiper of the day here. Once the bridge went back down we hopped on the road and hit Nummies Island. Nummies held Tricolored Heron and Whimbrel, and we thought it would have Little Blue Heron and Marbled Godwit. Since it would be easier to pick these up when they came to roost we did a seawatch and came back later. The seawatch had nothing, but Nummies had both of our birds when we got back. There was enough daylight to go back south of the canal to the Meadows. The Gadwall were there so we waited for the sun to go down so we could get Snipe or Nighthawk. Great-horned Owl was our only day bird, but it was still a good find.
As it got closer to 8 we hit our Chuck and Whip spots. We got both of these birds putting us at 211, a great total. We thought we were lucky enough to end the day with Black Rail at Turkey Point. There was another team there once we arrived, but both of us failed at hearing the Black Rail. It was 10:30 when we left, so we had to go back to the finish line in southern Cape May. After we arrived and got out of the car a Nighthawk called, giving us a new day bird at 11:40. We turned in our score of 212, which was the highest for a while until Nikon arrived later than expected. Our team tied for 3rd with the Zeiss Team, Bushnell took second (216) and won the non-resident award, and Nikon/DVOC won the whole thing with a score of 222. This was the first year any youth team had broken the 200 mark, and there was another youth team with 200+. The next day I saw a Curlew Sandpiper after the awards brunch.
Andy Bankert
ravenboy@cfl.rr.com
Melbourne Beach, FL