A Big Win for the Birds

World Series of Birding victory includes $160,000 for conservation

Team Sapsucker looks and listens for birds in all directions. From left to right, Chris Wood, John Fitzpatrick, Steve Kelling, and Brian Sullivan. (Not shown: Ken Rosenberg.)

Photo by Stan Honda

I'll remember this Big Day vividly all my life," said Lab director John Fitzpatrick. "It was an amazing day of birding, camaraderie, and competition." For the second year in a row the Lab's competitive birding team brought home the Urner-Stone championship cup in the World Series of Birding.

In a planned-but-frantic 24-hour dash across New Jersey on May 12, Team Sapsucker identified 230 species by sight and sound—a new team record and three species ahead of the next-highest teams. Thanks to the generosity of friends and members of the Lab, they earned more for bird conservation than any other team—$160,000. This total sent Team Sapsucker past the $2 million mark in Big Day funds raised for conservation since 1984.

The Lab's new student team, the Redheads, also had a terrific outing. Named for the Cornell Big Red, the team included five undergraduates in biology at Cornell. They birded Cape May County in the "limited geographic region" division and turned in a list of 174 species, second only to the veteran Maryland Ornithological Society team's 184 species. Funds raised will support undergraduate research at the Lab.

Team Sapsucker and the Redheads thank sponsor Swarovski Optik and everyone who pledged support this year. For more details and photos about the Big Day, please visit www.birds.cornell.edu/wsb.

—Pat Leonard

Stopping by Woods on a New Jersey Evening

By Steve Kelling, veteran Sapsucker,
with a nod to Robert Frost

Where these woods are, I do not know.
But Ken knows them like his, though.
He hopes that by us stopping here,
These birds will make our tally grow.

Anyone would think it very queer
To see five men as we appear,
Hanging from the car like some strange fruit,
On the birdiest evening of the year.

We pish and whistle, strain, and hoot,
Yearning for a saw-whet's toot,
The only other sounds come from the sky,
From thrush or cuckoo as they pass by.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep.
But we have Big Day pledges to keep.
And birds to list before we sleep,
And birds to list before we sleep.

Tim Lenz, scout. Photo by Ken Rosenberg

For permission to reprint all or part of this article, please contact Laura Erickson, editor, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, 159 Sapsucker Woods Rd., Ithaca, NY, 14850. Phone: (607) 254-1114. email: lle24@cornell.edu