Birdathons popular local conservation fund-raisers

As many of you may know, May is Birdathon month, with an international, 24-hour event called The World Series of Birding taking place in New Jersey. A birding team from Maine traveled down to the Garden State for the first time to take part in this 22nd annual event.

As reported by the New Jersey Star-Ledger, teams from 27 states, as well as from Canada and Turkey, participated, spotting 261 species of birds and raising more than $650,000 for conservation. Our team – “The Boreal Birders” – spotted 197 species to finish seventh in the event.

The Lagerhead Shrikes of the Delaware Valley won the event with a total count of 222. (For a detailed account, you can visit the Boreal Songbird Initiative Web site, at http://www.borealbirds.org/).

Birdathons can take place on a much smaller scale, and many do: Some people conduct their own at their favorite birding spots, or perhaps agree to sponsor someone else’s efforts.

For those who aren’t familiar with Birdathons, this event is done by counting as many birds as possible in a specified time period. You ask friends and acquaintances to sponsor you by agreeing to pay a certain amount (for example, 10 cents) for each bird species identified. People can participate individually or in teams. Locally, several teams of Maine Audubon members participated.

Some good-natured rivalry develops between participating birding teams. In a way, they informally compete against each other to see which team can spot the most birds. They may go out before dawn and not quit until after dark, so intense is the effort. But, in the end it is all for a good cause: raising money for conservation. And, often the competition is really that which you have with yourself – the sense of achievement you get for maintaining your alertness and pushing through fatigue to get as many birds as you can. It’s also from using your knowledge of each bird’s habitat types, daily periods of activity, songs and call notes.

In the past I’ve taken part in all-day Birdathons, but this year I agreed to sponsor someone else. On the spur of the moment, though, I did end up going birding for a few hours on the “Big Day.” A friend and I drove down to Sewall Park in Old Town; its location near Pushaw Lake makes it a great spot to bird.

Upon leaving our vehicle we immediately heard the songs of black-throated green, black and white, and northern parula warblers; a northern waterthrush and a great-crested flycatcher added their distinctive voices to the morning chorus. We walked out to Poplar Street, a long section of which runs through Caribou Bog, and here we had our most enjoyable birding.

Yellow warblers were everywhere. They sang with abandon from the tops of birch trees and engaged in aerial chases whenever a rival got too close. They were so numerous that a fellow birder we met out there remarked “you have to brush them aside.”

Common yellowthroat warblers scolded us from within dense alder thickets; this wet environment suited them perfectly. A slight rise in the terrain gave upland flora a foothold; here, we found a chestnut-sided warbler and an American redstart, which was a special treat.

We saw many more birds that day, and were rewarded with one of the few – if not the only – sunny mornings we’ve had in a while. I was grateful that the decision to go birding got me out to enjoy it.

NEWS bird columnist Chris Corio can be reached at bdnsports@bangordailynews.net