The Big Sit is becoming a yearly ritual that I cherish perhaps more than the Christmas Bird Counts. For those of you that have heard of it, here is the website. https://www.thebigsit.org/
Unfortunately they still have not updated the results for 2024 yet. Basically you sit within a 17 foot diameter circle and count as many species as you can in a day. We are not totally gung-ho and usually only start shortly before first light and most times we have not stayed past 3-4pm. Some teams take it more seriously and stay a full 24 hours. I suppose if we were getting huge numbers we could consider staying later but so far we have not gone over 100 species.
First a pic from earlier in October:
Every year I try and get at least one Philadelphia Vireo. This one was at Burnt Mill Creek.
On the day of the Big Sit, I arrived at Battery Buchanan on 12Oct shortly before first light to find Sam C and Jacob A already recording nocturnal flight calls using a bucket and an iPhone. You put the phone while running Merlin bird ID into a bucket which helps to amplify the sound from the sky. They had 10 or so species before I even showed up.
The cool thing about the Big Sit is the rules allow cooperation between people that are not all confined to the circle. One thing we like to do is send someone down to the rocks to find birds and then have them call the people on the hill so they can spot them. As long as the people in the circle can see the bird that the "caller" finds, they are fair game. Usually we only get a handful of difficult to find birds this way.
This Saltmarsh Sparrow was scurrying along the jetty in open view but the people in the circle would have hard a hard time to ID it to species without someone down closer making the call. This bird had nice contrast between the facial yellow and the breast yellow making the Saltmarsh ID easy.
This Semipalmated Plover was kind of tricky to find but I got Sam and Jacob on it.
Same for this Least Sandpiper. It would have been difficult for them to confirm leg color but all the way up the hill.
Savannah Sparrows were easier to find as some of them even made it up into the count area.
The bird of the day was easily the continuing Hudsonian Godwit which foraged in the water just at the base of Battery Buchanan.
Unfortunately although we had some good winds, they were not quite strong enough to produce a fallout. You really need a pretty strong NW wind overnight to push birds to the point and it needs to be strong enough to make the birds think twice about crossing the Cape Fear River. We had a handful of warblers including a Nashville but we didn't get double-digits. We ended the day with 84 species. We had about 7-8 people stop by throughout the day to join us. I can't wait for next year!
Red-eyed Vireo at Burnt Mill the next day after the Big Sit. Although I love the Sit, it was good to be able to walk around again.
Swamp Sparrows start coming back in good numbers in mid-Oct.
Blue-headed Vireo in the Crepe Myrtle in my front yard.
This American Bittern flushed from the tiny pond on Burnt Mill Creek north of Chestnut St.
Eastern Wood Pewee - there is something about birds perched on old grave stones that I love. This is Oakdale Cemetery next to BMC.
Pine Warbler
A late Wood Thrush at BMC hiding in the foliage.
Marsh Wren at the same little pond on BMC.
Sometimes the Clapper Rails come out to play at Fort Fisher.
George had a Regatta in late October at Jordan Lake in the triangle so I spent the day up there and birded Ebenezer Point. It was amazing the amount of warblers flying around, although most of them were Pine Warblers.
Eastern Bluebird
Bay-breasted Warbler
Brown Creeper
Meanwhile back at Fort Fisher, the Ferry Parking Lot is always a good place to bird in late October.
Savannah Sparrows are thick.
We usually get a Vesper Sparrow or two.
Palm Warblers can be stunning in the right light.
A young Clay-colored Sparrow was mixed in with the Savannahs.
We almost always get a few White-crowned Sparrows.
Clay-colored.
A Pied-billed Grebe enjoyed the nice fall weather at BMC.
A late Blue Grosbeak at BMC.
A Loggerhead Shrike has been hanging out at the Fort Fisher Ferry Parking.
That's a wrap for October! I have a few pics from November to share then I will be caught up and will probably spend some time curating some more of my species entries. My goal is to have one entry for every species I have pictures for so my blog can be easily searched for pictures of birds I have seen. Maybe some day I will break 10,000 photographed species! Someone recently did see their 10,000th species after a lifetime of birding around the world, but to my knowledge he didn't photograph them all! Goals are fun to have even if they are not attainable. The fun part is trying.
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