Saturday, October 8, was the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s October Global “Big Day,” a coordinated effort by birders around the world to count as many of the planet’s bird species as possible in a single day.
This year birders tallied 7,345 of the 10,627 currently known species on planet Earth. Over 33,000 birders contributed more than 77,000 checklists. Colombia, the perennial favorite, topped the list with 1,213 species. Birders in the United States identified 682 species (this tells you something rather incredible about Colombia, given that it is about one tenth the size of the U.S.).
I personally added 55 species, mostly at Beckley Creek Park. On a crisp morning with what might have been our first frost of the season, highlights were a sora foraging around the pond, five Lincoln’s sparrows, and an unusually good look at a marsh wren. The abundant Lincoln’s sparrows were joined by song, field, chipping, and white-crowned sparrows. More will be settling in soon as we wrap up the great avian shift change occurring this time of year - summer birds headed south, winter birds like the kinglets and white-crowned sparrows arriving from the north, and millions of migrants passing through. The marsh wren was a Kentucky first for me - they are not terribly uncommon, but they are extremely skulky and rarely emerge from the cattails long enough for a photo. Exciting to get a good look at one in my home state.
Thanks for following along!
Greg
