The Lab's victorious team tallied 224 bird species in 24 hours. Left to right, Ken Rosenberg, Steve Kelling (holding Urner Stone Cup for first place overall), Jeff Wells, Kevin McGowan (holding Stearns Trophy for best out-of-state team total), and John Fitzpatrick. Ann Redelfs

What a difference two birds can make. Moments after midnight, May 12, the totals were in, and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's World Series of Birding (WSB) Big Day team learned that they had beaten some 70 teams to bring back the prestigious Urner Stone Cup for the highest total.

The Sapsuckers tallied 224 species in the midnight-to-midnight birding extravaganza across the state of New Jersey, coming in two species higher than the second-place team.

"For the Lab, the Big Day is not just about winning, it's about raising awareness and financial support for birds and their habitats," says Lab director and team cocaptain John Fitzpatrick. Lab members and friends pledged more than $700 per species, for a record-breaking fund-raising effort of almost $160,000. Thanks to sponsorship by Swarovski Optik, which covers Big Day expenses, all of the pledge funds will be spent to protect birds and their habitats. This year's funds will provide vital support for the Lab's efforts to protect declining birds in Mexico, including Painted Buntings and other migrants that winter in Mexico.

A detour paid off when Fitzpatrick's hoots brought in a Barred Owl Peter and Sandra Stettenheim/CLO

Big Day 2002 got off to an auspicious start for the Sapsuckers-they heard the whinny of an Eastern Screech-Owl and spotted a Great Horned Owl on a snag during the first 30 minutes of their vigil at the Great Swamp. More than a dozen stops later, they had accomplished a clean sweep of grassland birds and found numerous tough migrants such as Blackpoll, Tennessee, and Canada warblers. Calculated stops for species like Lesser Scaup and Ruffed Grouse paid off, and a special detour to a traditional nesting site yielded the hoped-for Barred Owl.

"We found 151 species by 10 A.M., before we left the northern part of the state, perfectly positioning us for a strong showing through the central and southern parts of our route," said Ken Rosenberg, cocaptain of the Sapsuckers and the Lab's conservation science director. "But what pushed us to the top was finding two crucial species you just can't count on during any WSB Big Day-Swainson's Warbler and Black Rail."

A vagrant Swainson's Warbler had set up a territory at Jake's Landing, where carloads of birders were waiting for the bird to make an appearance. En route, Sapsucker Jeff Wells, Lab affiliate and Audubon's bird conservation director, had been practicing his imitation of the Swainson's song for 20 minutes. "We hopped out of the van and before Jeff could complete his perfectly-tuned whistle, the real Swainson's Warbler burst into song not 30 feet from the road," Rosenberg said. Exiting past dropped jaws and raised thumbs, the team headed west and soon tallied Bald Eagle, Red-shouldered Hawk, Barn Owl, Red-headed Woodpecker, and Summer Tanager.

The team checked off Greater Scaup and other birds at Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge. Uve Hublitz/CLO

The team finished up the day at the bayshore marshes of Turkey Point, where a shadowy silhouette sallied out against a darkening sky-the Eastern Wood-Pewee that had eluded them earlier. Chuck-will's-widow and Whip-poor-will sounded off, and an American Bittern's flight calls were distinguishable among the cacophany of ducks and shorebirds leaving the marsh. To top off the phenomenal day, the nasal kiki-doo of a Black Rail signalled the team's 224th and final species.

How will the team be able to surpass its astounding success next year? "There's a record out there, for the all-time highest number of birds identified during the World Series of Birding," says Fitzpatrick. "It's high time we broke it."

The Sapsuckers-Rosenberg, Fitzpatrick, Wells, research associate Kevin McGowan, and director of information technologies Steve Kelling-share credit with a handful of diehard scouts and a behind-the-scenes team that handled mind-boggling logistics. Most of all, they thank the generous donors whose pledge total broke all records in the 19-year history of the WSB.

For more about the WSB and Team Sapsucker's Big Day, visit the WSB web site. If you'd like to make a postvictory pledge, send a check to Cornell Lab of Ornithology, 159 Sapsucker Woods Rd., Ithaca, NY, 14850. Or call (800) 843-2473 or (607) 254-2473 (outside the United States).