Tuesday, January 29, 2008

The Superbowl of Birding 1/26/2008

Here is the list of birds seen and/or heard by the "Burger Kinglets" superbowl team between 5AM and 5PM in Essex County, Ma. (north of Boston) on Saturday 1/26. Our route consistied of Owling in Ipswich and Essex, then, Flax Pond in Lynn, Nahant, Lynn/Swampscott (waterfronts), Cape Ann (Gloucester/Rockport), through Essex/Ipswich, West Newbury, Plum Island concluding with a few stops along the Merrimac River to the Chain Bridge. I left the camera at home as there is little time to snap pictures during a day of fast paced birding.

Common Loon
Horned Grebe
Red-necked Grebe
Eared Grebe (Nile Beach)
Great Cormorant
Great Blue Heron (Cashman Park)
Turkey Vulture (Ipswich)
Canada Goose
Brant (Nahant)
Mute Swan
Gadwall
American Black Duck
Mallard
Ring-necked Duck (Niles Pond)
Greater Scaup (Swampscott)
Lesser Scaup (SwampScott)
King Eider (Atlantic Drive , Elks Club stop)
Common Eider
Harlequin Duck (Andrew's Pt)
Surf Scoter
White-winged Scoter
Black Scoter
Oldsquaw
Bufflehead
Common Goldeneye
Hooded Merganser (Flax Pond)
Red-breasted Merganser
Common Merganser
Bald Eagle (Merrimac River)
Northern Harrier
Sharp-shinned Hawk
Cooper's Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
Rough-legged Hawk (Plum Island a few birds)
Merlin (Draw Bridge to plum island)
Peregrine Falcon (Gloucester)
American Coot (Flax Pond)
Black-bellied Plover (Brace Cove)
Sanderling (Brace Cove)
Purple Sandpiper
Ring-billed Gull
Herring Gull
Iceland Gull
Glaucous Gull ( a few in East Gloucester, one w/ a bad foot)
Great Black-backed Gull
Black Guillemot
Rock Dove
Mourning Dove
Eastern Screech-Owl (several in Ipswich and Essex, we had one trilling away in the early afternoon in Ipswich)
Great Horned Owl (a few in Ipswich and 1 in Essex)
Snowy Owl (Plum Island)
Long-eared Owl (Harrassed by crow near Niles Pond, 3 members of the team had good a look while it was perched before it was flushed by the crows for a second time), our only real surprise of the day.
Short-eared Owl (a few at plum Island)
Northern Saw-whet Owl (Island Road in Essex)
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Hairy Woodpecker
Northern Shrike (Good harbor beach, Gloucester and Plum Island)
Blue JayAmerican Crow
Horned Lark
Black-capped Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
Red-breasted Nuthatch (Pine on Plum Island)
White-breasted Nuthatch
Carolina Wren
Winter Wren (Nahant Thicket, seemed like it was the only land bird in all of Nahant...guess the exterminator must missed this one!)
American Robin
Northern Mockingbird
European Starling
Cedar Waxwing
American Tree Sparrow
Song Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Northern Cardinal
Red-winged Blackbird (Town Farm Road Ipswich)
Brown-headed Cowbird (Town Farm Road Ipswich)
House Finch
Common Redpoll (Emery Lane small flock flew overhead)
American Goldfinch
House Sparrow

Here is a link to the Massachusetts Audubon Superbowl web site .

Our team, "The Burger Kinglets", was comprised of the following members:
Paul Meleski (Team captain)
Dan Berard
Chuck Caron
Rodney Jenkins
Tom Pirro

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tom,
Sounds like a fun event. I really like one day counts, just going out to find as many species as possible for one day. I hope a count like the Superbowl of Birding catches on around here.
Vern

Tom Pirro said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Tom Pirro said...

Hi Vern,
It is a fun event! What makes this a bit different than a typical big day competition is the point assignments to each species. Common birds worth 1, less common 2 .....etc up to 5 points. All 5 point birds or write-ins have to be called into Mass Audubon, the team to call a 5 pt./Write-in species first, gets a 3 point bonus... Subsequent call ins get the 5 but not the bonus.

Larry said...

If the Patriots do as good as you guys did, then they'll win the Superbowl once again! Sounds like you had a lot of fun but I bet you were tired at the end of the day.

Tom Pirro said...

Thank Larry,
Hopefully the "Pats" can pull it off on Sunday. The Giants played them tough last time and I suspect it will be a tight game. Our point total for the birding contest was 82 species for 168 pts, good enough for 3rd on the Mass side of the border...first was 90 species and 219 pts, 2nd was 90 species for 193 points. We were very pleased with our totals.