Shorebirder

Last year's CT Big Day effort would have been considered a success if our expectations had not been raised so greatly by our record-breaking 192 run in 2011. I took 2012 off, but was back last year and hoping for a new record. Instead, we came up with 186. Not quite the number we were hoping for, but it did tie the old record that stood for so many years, showing that our 2011 run was no fluke. Entering 2014, I had set aside over a week for scouting, so my expectations were high. Dave and Fran, the kings of the north, already had their basic route set from the past few years, so they didn't need as much time as in past years to feel comfortable with it. Patrick and Frank had a whole lot going on so their scouting time was more limited than expected, but somehow Frank managed to sneak out most days and cover some of our most productive coastal locations. My schedule flexibility allowed me to cover whatever ground the others could not get to, including the CT River Valley and m...

Our team of Patrick Dugan, Frank Gallo, Dave Tripp, Fran Zygmont and myself (collectively the "Raven Luna-ticks") ran our 2011 CT Big Day on Friday, May 20. Our total of 192 species broke the long-standing Connecticut record (186) and, as a nice little bonus, the record among New England states (Massachusetts, 191). So how did we get to 192? History : This was our third year as a Big Day team, previously recording 177 species on 5/24/09 and 185 species on 5/23/10 . Read those brief summaries for details on our prior two efforts. Each of us had a fair amount of big day experience before we came together as a team. I had done some variation of a CT big day or birdathon for the five or so years before we formed our team. The other four guys had actually been teammates for some very successful World Series of Birding efforts. Scheduling and Weather : We blocked-off a predetermined window of 5 days so that we could choose the exact date last-minute based on the weathe...

Date : May 23, 2010 Team : Dave Tripp, Fran Zygmont, Frank Gallo, Patrick Dugan, and myself. Preparation : Scouting was limited again this year, but we were still able to improve upon our route from last year. Just a few weeks ago we nearly decided to scrap the whole thing, thinking it might be a waste of time. Also, we were pigeonholed into the date of May 23, which may be a couple days later than is optimal. Summary : For a great summary of the day, including our highlights and misses, see Frank Gallo's summary . Final Tally : 185 (just one short of the state record of 186 and six short of the New England record of 191 set in Massachusetts)...a great improvement over last year's total of 177 . Analysis : We were able to tweak last year's route with this year's scouting, which was surprising given the small amount of time we had to scout between the 5 of us. We devoted most of our free time to scouting the inland areas, which really paid off with a fine tally of inla...

Team : Dave Tripp, Fran Zygmont, Frank Gallo, Patrick Dugan, and myself Preparation : We had set our date a week in advance as it was the only day all of us were available. Fran and Dave were able to do a fair bit of scouting the inland portion of the route. Frank, Patrick, and I were exceedingly busy and could only spare a few hours here and there for scouting coastally. Summary : We met at 11pm at a Dunkin Donuts in Cromwell, all geared up for 24 hours of birding. Few things in life get my adrenaline going more than the few hours before the start of a big day. Our nighttime route included inland marshes and grasslands, where we were able to pick up some common rails, owls, and grassland breeders (including Upland Sandpiper and Grasshopper Sparrow singing at night!). From here we were at the mercy of Fran and Dave, who strung together a fantastic inland route. While we missed some birds, we did pretty darn well. Before we knew it we were headed for the coast with 130 species. I had cr...