Tag Archives: World Series of Birding

Student World Series Team Wins Cape May County With 166 Species

By Pat Leonard Imagine standing in a marsh at night with the rain pouring down and wind blowing through the tall grass, masking all other sounds. Imagine standing there for 20 minutes and not hearing a single bird. That’s the way Team Redhead’s World Series of Birding began on May 11 at midnight. Despite the [...]

Scouting Report: Students of Team Redhead Prepare for World Series of Birding

Team Redhead is doing its homework. These five Cornell students, all top-notch birders, are into their second full day of scouting ahead of this Saturday’s 30th annual World Series of Birding in New Jersey. As always, the goal is to identify as many bird species by sight or sound as possible in a slightly manic [...]

World Series results: Epic day of migration finds Cornell Lab teams at front of pack

With hordes of migrant songbirds fluttering in the bushes of southern New Jersey on Saturday, two Cornell teams posted strong finishes in the 29th annual World Series of Birding. The student Redheads team scored 168 species with their new lineup, enough to take second place in the Cape May County division. And the bicycle-powered Anti-Petrels [...]

Scouting Day 2: How to Scout for Warblers in New Jersey

Here in New Jersey, the Anti-Petrels spent the morning refining our route for the dawn hours of the World Series of Birding on Saturday. The students of Team Redhead scouted saltmarshes, then headed inland to Belleplain State Forest’s warblers, tanagers, and woodpeckers before hitting Cape May to look for shorebirds and a rare Mississippi Kite. [...]

Scouting Day 1: Warblers, Sandpipers, Herons, and Rain

Lots of bird watchers are obsessive about their hobby, but we still usually regard it as an optional pursuit: when it rains, we’re allowed to stay indoors. But with the World Series of Birding just three days away, our teams—the student Redheads and the bike-powered Anti-Petrels—didn’t really have that option today. Starting at 12:01 a.m. [...]

Student Birding: New Team Lineup Preps for World Series

This week, some 62 teams are converging on Cape May, New Jersey, for the World Series of Birding, now in its 29th year. Starting at 12:00 a.m. Saturday morning, those birders will cup a hand to their ears and start counting birds. And they won’t stop until the following midnight. Our own student team, the [...]

Cornell Lab teams victorious in World Series of Birding!

On an overcast and occasionally rainy day in Cape May, the Cornell Lab Redheads and Anti-Petrels found enough good “gets” to offset the painful misses from a slow day of songbird migration. Both teams won their divisions in the 2011 World Series of Birding: the Redheads won Cape May County with 163 species, and the [...]

World Series Scouting: As Darkness Falls

(The Redheads and the Anti-Petrels are in southern New Jersey scouting their routes for the World Series of Birding on Saturday, May 14. More info and scouting reports.) Dusk is gathering under the pines at Belleplain. Swainson’s Thrushes and Veeries called off and on through the day, but what’s ruling the airwaves right now is [...]

Busy, Birdy Scouting for World Series of Birding Teams

Wednesday was the first full day of scouting for our two World Series of Birding teams, the Redheads and the Anti-Petrels. We’re doing what you do during scouting week—re-learning bird calls, re-finding birds we can count on, obsessing over which route we should take on Saturday, second guessing the route we took last year, and [...]

Anti-Petrels pedal for the medal in the World Series of Birding

Along with the Redheads, the Cornell Lab’s other team in next week’s World Series of Birding is the Anti-Petrels. They’re competing in the “Carbon Footprint Cup,” which means they do all of their traveling on the day of the event by bike. Last year they rode 101 miles to win their category with 150 species—but [...]