The opportunity to help scout northern New Jersey for the World Series of Birding was
too good to pass up. It sounded like an ideal trip—three days away from the computer terminal, giving my carpal tunnels a rest while I birded all day, every day, plus nights. Even better, if all went well, my efforts would help the Lab’s Sapsuckers team to raise money for conservation so that the species we found this year would be found well into the next century.

Whether I was up to this level of birding nagged in the back of my mind. I’d been practicing, of course. I’d listened to birdsong CDs from both the eastern and western United States, not to mention a disc of European bird songs. Hey, if a vagrant Fieldfare flew over, I was going to be ready!

But the drive down was a sobering event. At first, when team captain Ken Rosenberg popped in tapes of warbler songs I felt like yawning. After weeks of listening to audio guides I could identify warbler songs in my sleep. But as variation after variation came
through the speakers I started to panic. “Listen, this Tennessee Warbler is dropping the first part of the song, and substituting a rising buzz instead of a staccato
trill.” And I thought I was listening to a parula! “This Magnolia Warbler’s song is more drawn out than normal, kind of like a Hooded’s. And this Black-and-white Warbler sounds just like a Cape May.” What kind of birds do they have in New Jersey, anyway?
At the New York–Pennsylvania border I rolled down the car window and symbolically threw out everything I thought I knew.

When we checked into the motel we found that every room was taken by World Series of Birding competitors. Bruce, a fellow scout, and I received our assignment for the next day. As the clock approached midnight, we wondered aloud what was going to be tougher, filtering out the focal birds through the dawn chorus or actually getting up at 4:00 A.M. Those who were planning the routes complained they couldn’t sleep because they kept seeing road maps of New Jersey whenever they closed their eyes. More than one team invested in Nyquil to help take the edge off.

The next morning, to my relief, most birds sang what they were supposed to sing. We walked along a road, sifting through Wood Thrushes, Veeries, and robins to find a Hermit Thrush and combed the Red-eyed and Yellow-throated vireos for the nesting Blue-headed Vireo. We spent another morning in a grassland, recording the times that different species started singing. Later we found promising areas for Virginia Rail, American Bittern, and Belted Kingfisher. Scouts from other teams tipped us off about where to find Pied-billed Grebes and Common Moorhens.

Photo credit: Ken Rosenberg

Bruce Robertson (left) and author Mike Powers (right), ready to scout for the Sapsuckers in the World Series of Birding.

After three days of scouting, we had an excellent profile of what species were where. It would be up to the Sapsuckers to see if they would still be there on Saturday. Looking back, we discovered that the World Series of Birding was about more than just the birds. We discovered that our ears, eyes, and memories were definitely up to the task laid before us and that the human body will tolerate quite a bit when confronted with a lack of sleep and nutrition. To our surprise, we found that parts of northern New Jersey still feel as though you are in the middle of nowhere and that good Mexican food can be found in at least one small out-of-the-way town.

In fact, the most rewarding sight was not the Ring-necked Pheasant, the Purple Finch carrying nest material, or even a close-up view of a family of black bears. It was a stoic elderly gentleman playing piano at an Italian restaurant, hammering away at the keys, playing everything from rockabilly to generic dinner music. When the waitress overheard how impressed we were, she said, “He comes in every night and plays for a few
hours, even though we don’t pay him. He just loves doing it.” We all hoped we’d still be going that strong when we turned 80. “Yeah,” she smiled, continuing to pour the water, “Me too. Funny thing is, he’ll be 101 in August.”

Though I wasn’t even in New Jersey for the Big Day, I felt anxious. Would the Sapsuckers find the Grasshopper Sparrow I staked out? Would Bruce’s Winter Wren
still be singing? On a deeper level, would we be out there, still doing what we loved when we were 80? And, more importantly, would the species we had found on this trip not only be there on Saturday, but when we all turned 101?

Mike Powers is the project assistant for The Birdhouse Network.