The First Annual Birdathon Wrap-up
Well, folks, gratitude is the best way to start anything, but if there are words that adequately express the gratitude I’ve been feeling since Birdathon, I haven’t found them yet. Thank you. This past weekend, 14 teams (encompassing 42 participants) from all over Michigan came up to Chippewa County (in the birding world, perhaps best-known for being the home of Whitefish Point) to spent 24 hours looking and listening for as many bird species as they could find while raising money for the owl research conducted by Friends of Whitefish Point. Collectively, we found 190 species and raised over $6500, so it was a smashing success. The winning teams, The Peep-Los (Alec Olivier, Jim Zervos, and Tracey Zervos) and Balding Eagles and a Harpy (Scott Jennex, Tom Pavlik, & Mary Trombley), found 135 species! Not bad for a chilly day in mid-May!
Birdathon participants with their Birdathon t-shirts and great attitudes!
I spent at least a hundred hours building the foundation for this event. I tried really hard to avoid expectations with Birdathon, but still, intimidation dominated my psyche right when Birdathon hours started at 7PM Friday. I'm not a planned; this event had me far outside my comfort zone. When I stopped at a volunteer’s house en route to Whitefish Point to drop off her t-shirt, a storm was rolling in and I heard her generator start: the power had just gone out, which seemed an ominous note on which to start the Birdathon.
Within the first hour of birding, my team WHIMgirls were gifted with about 12 types of weather—and also a Piping Plover, a Rough-legged Hawk, a Spruce Grouse, and a nice evening push of White-winged Scoters. That’s Whitefish Point for ya, and it bears mention that there aren’t many places in North America where you can easily find this combination of birds at one site. WHIMgirls only birded till about noon the next day, but we had fun: Wood Thrushes were singing over the roar of Tahquamenon Falls, Olive-sided Flycatchers were quick-three-beersing (while we were quick-second-coffeeing), the prettiest Harlequin Duck I’ve ever seen in Michigan was swimming around the Harbor of Refuge, and a low flock of warblers at Lone Pine lit up a gray day.
Birdathon Presentation at the Paradise Community Center
But truly, what lit up Birdathon for me was the way that birders from all over Michigan showed up and came together to celebrate May birding and support the owl research conducted by Friends of Whitefish Point. The diversity of people at our celebration dinner that night was no less remarkable than the suite of birds WHIMgirls found in our first hour of birding. There were tattoo artists, police officers, college professors, college students, kids who were younger than I was when I did my first birdathon, people I’ve birded with since before I could drive (and some faces I hadn’t seen for a very long time!), the neighbor who cleared my driveway when I wintered in Paradise two years ago, and another neighbor whose cauldron and fire have tended my own fires so many times. To look out and see that unity was nourishment for my soul. Thank YOU to those who participated, volunteered, donated, helped me plan, and gave me faith that we could pull this event off. My vision was to propagate a day centered on fun competition and birding community while raising money for a great cause, and because of so many of you, WE DID IT. Looking forward to doing it again next year!
Here is a link to the species list for all of the Birdathon teams: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Ej6aaxdO6HL8YqeOim-mMdiVoJ0LvcxqptwJg2mco2c/edit?gid=0#gid=0