Greetings from Ithaca,
As many of you know, I had the great fortune to do a big day in Colorado with Jessie Barry, Marshall Iliff, Tim Lenz, Brian Sullivan, and Andrew Farnsworth, colleagues and good friends who I'm privileged to work with at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. We had a tremendous day in Colorado with a final tally of 232 species (and one flat tire). We also submitted about 50 checklists during the day that are in eBird and there is a complete write up and species list at the end of the email that goes to All About Birds.
None of this would have been possible without the great birding community in Colorado, and I join the entire team in thanking all of you. First, a generous thanks to the thousands of Colorado birders who use eBird. Even in the 13 short years I've been away from Colorado, bird populations have changed in sometimes dramatic ways and your sightings helped us plan long before we arrived in Colorado. While the intended goal of eBird data are to advance science and conservation efforts, there is no question that these data were incredibly helpful in planning the big day.
Thanks to dozens of individual birders in Colorado provided broad to specific information on birds, in particular Alec Hopping, Joey Kellner, Tony Leukering, Bill Maynard, Polly Nelder, Duane Nelson, Mark Peterson, Brandon Percival, Pearle and Clif Sandstrom-Smith, Dave Silverman, Jane Stulp, and Glenn Walbek.
Three individuals went far above and beyond and spent countless hours helping us: Alec Hopping, Mark Peterson and Duane Nelson. Alec Hopping, who will join us at Cornell next fall, volunteered to help us scout morning locations. While this may sound fun, it largely consists of going along the route and finding territories of several target species — forgoing the best of spring migration to find pairs of Gray Flycatchers that may sing late in the day. Fun(ish). Mark Peterson, whose combined knowledge of Colorado birds and big days is unrivaled, spent countless hours answering numerous queries on topics ranging from specific sites to road conditions to specific details on the activities of individual birds from weeks to a few hours before the big day.
Duane Nelson was particularly helpful with Bent county and was directly responsible for 7 species we would have otherwise not seen. Ironically this did not include Piping Plover (because of time we lost with our flat tire). Around the world, no one has put in more effort and made such a difference in ensuring that a species persist within a state. Duane, thanks for your help on the Big Day, and for being a mentor, friend, and demonstrating what one person's passion can do. You've inspired me and many others.
Finally, many thanks to the great people who work to protect and manage natural areas for biosiversity in Colorado both on private and public lands. Colorado is blessed with a tremendous mix of national parks, national forests and grasslands, national wildlife refuges, state parks, state wildlife areas, private nature reserves, state lands privately managed and private lands. All play critical roles in conservation of birds and biodiversity and it should be no surprise that to see such a mix of birds, required us to visit a selection of almost all of these (national parks were too far from the route to visit). In particular, we'd like to thank the great people at Chico Basin Ranch including the entire Phillips family, Juliana Frost, and Nancy Gobris who generously allowed us to visit the ranch. 27 new species for the day at Chico at 3 in the afternoon — what an amazing place. And many thanks to Dallas May for access to his incredible property protecting some of the finest grasslands I've seen in southeastern Colorado.
232 species! Read more here: http://tinyurl.com/jlceunc
Warmest wishes and many thanks,
Chris Wood, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY
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