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October Global Big Day This Saturday

Oct4

For the last four years, eBird has held a Global Big Day in May to try to count as many of the world’s bird species as possible in one day, with citizen scientists counting birds all over the world. May is the height of spring migration in the northern hemisphere, and the count has been extremely popular and successful. This year eBird is holding another Big Day on Saturday October 6th, when many birds in the northern hemisphere are on migration, and spring is under way in the southern hemisphere.

Global Big Day

Image from the eBird Global Big Day page.

All you have to do to participate is to submit an eBird list from any birding you do on October 6. There is information on the Global Big Day page on how to set up an account if you haven’t already done so. You can also watch the results come in from all over the world during the day on this page.

Get out on Saturday and participate in this event! If you can’t get out, send a list from your yard. Every little bit helps!

Global Big Day, Saturday May 5, 2018

May4

Tomorrow is the fourth annual Global Big Day organized by the Cornell lab of Ornithology. Birders all over the world are encouraged to go birding and report their sightings on eBird. The goal is to see how many of the world’s 10,000+ species can be found, and to get reports from as many places and as many people as possible.

Global Big Day

Global Big Day 2018. Image from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

The first such Big Day in 2015 had 6,085 species reported, which almost doubled the previous best day on eBird. Last year, on May 13, almost 20,000 people from 150 countries contributed more than 50,000 checklists containing 6,564 species. This is truly an important record of the state of the birds in the world.

To take part, just go birding anywhere you want to, and report your sightings on eBird. There is no need to spend the whole day – just spend some time counting birds in your local park, your yard, or anywhere you like.

You can read more about the 2018 Global Big Day here. You can also watch in real time as the results come in on this page.

If you have not used eBird before, it is very easy to get started. All the information you need is on their site. Start here to learn how it works, and then sign in and get started.

Note: If you want to contribute on Saturday but have not yet started using eBird, please just record the information about your outing (the location, the time spent birding, the species you see, and their approximate numbers), and you can enter the data into eBird later. Your sightings will be added to the Big Day. If you have trouble getting started with eBird, email me at birdscalgary[at]gmail.com and I’ll try to help. But read the information on the eBird site first.

Join Us For a Calgary Region Big Day

Jun11

Posted by Bob Lefebvre

Next Saturday, June 18, Andrew Hart, Rose Painter and I will lead the 2nd annual Calgary Region Big Day field trip for Nature Calgary. This is an all-day trip to find as many species as possible within the 80-km-radius circle centered on Calgary. Our modest goal is 125 species.

As you can see from the map below the area is huge, and we can’t visit all good habitats in a single day. We will be focusing on a few good spots and trying to keep the pace fast to give us flexibility towards the end of the day.

80km circle - Google Earth

The Calgary Region 80-km Circle.

We will begin our day at 5:30 am in NW Calgary. This is kind of a late start for a Big Day at this time of year, so we need people to arrive on time or a little early. Note that registration is required – please call one of the leaders to let them know you are coming, so we know when everyone has arrived and can plan the car-pooling. The trip details and phone numbers are on the Nature Calgary website here.

Our destinations will include Horse Creek Road, several stops in the Water Valley area, Plumber’s Road and Brown-Lowery Provincial Park, Windy Point west of Turner Valley, and Frank Lake. There may be more stops after that if there is time. We plan to be back at the starting point by no later than 8 pm. If anyone cannot stay for the whole day we will try to arrange the car-pooling to accommodate that.

Bobolink

Bobolink – one of our target birds for the Big Day. Photo by Dan Arndt.

Nature Calgary field trips are free and open to everyone; you don’t have to be a member of Nature Calgary to attend. We hope that some birders will have their biggest day ever, and there is always a chance to see some birds that are new to you, and to learn about some new birding locations in the Calgary area.