COA 2020 “BIG JANUARY” EVENT
- With the start of another new year just around the corner it is once again time to get ready for a “Big January.” A “Big January” is a friendly competition among birders to see who can find the most species of bird in Connecticut during the first month of the year. While the statewide competition is organized by Connecticut Ornithological Association (COA), it s not necessary to be a COA member to submit a list. Of course January is one of the twelve best months to join COA if you are not already a member!
- Birders take part in Big Januarys for the joy of birding and for the fun of a friendly competition, however this year we have an opportunity to help our knowledge of the state of birds within Connecticut to boot. The Connecticut Bird Atlas Project will be entering the “Late Winter” survey period in January. So you can volunteer to do field surveys and rack up species for the competition at the same time. This also affords us the very reasonable excuse to use with our loved ones that we are not just going birding once again, we are doing fieldwork! A link to the Connecticut Bird Atlas Project is at the end of this post. We birders are a noble and selfless lot…
- There are a few guidelines, and they are as follows:
– Advance registration is not required to participate.
– All species seen or heard (yes heard birds count) have to have been observed while you are on public land, your own property, or any private property you have permission to enter. The birds observed must of course be in Connecticut, Connecticut airspace, or Connecticut waters.
– The categories for totals are State and/or County.
– If you use eBird to submit all your observations for the month of
January, we will use the eBird records for your totals, there is no need to supply other records to us.
– If you do not submit your records to eBird, please keep a record of where and when you first observed each species during the month and forward the total results at the end of the month to Dave Provencher via email at: hikerbirder1@gmail.com.
– Deadline for submission is Sunday, February 2, 2020 at 11:59 pm.
– The results will be reported shortly thereafter on the CTBirds list-serve and subsequently on the COA website.
– Digital photos of notable birds found during the competition are welcome and any images used for the summary report will be credited to the photographer.
– The competition is honor system based. Please make every effort to ensure your identifications are correct.
– It is an expectation that proper birding ethics will be employed by all competitors at all times.
That’s it! When the first is upon us, go forth and bird! The best of luck to all.
Connecticut Bird Atlas Project Winter Survey can be found at
http://ctbirdatlas.org/Surveys_winter.htm
Dave Provencher
Preston, CT