Photo of the Week: Third Annual October Big Day of Birding

chunky brown bird with brown smudges on white breast and thin white eyering perches on bare tree.

Hard to believe 2020 marks the third year of October Big Day, a global 24-hour event for birdwatchers around the world to watch and report all the birds they’ve seen.

This year had an added bonus for October Big Day, this weekend was also the first Global Bird Weekend.

I’ve participated every year and was happy it didn’t rain this year like it did for my first October Big Day in 2018.

Word has spread about the fun you can have birding!

The first year, over 13,000 people participated. In 2019, more than 20,000 people participated in Global Big Day.

And for 2020, I joined almost 29,000 people in submitting 66,843 checklists of 6,799 species (as of October 18, 2020 at 6:30pm Eastern Time). Continue reading Photo of the Week: Third Annual October Big Day of Birding

Photo of the Week: Wet Day of Birding for First October Big Day

small brown bird with white breast and black banded neck and collar.

Yesterday, I was on one of over 13,000 participants in October Big Day, an international event for birdwatchers to watch and report all the birds they see in a single day.

I had high hopes of reporting 50 or more bird species for my October Big Day.

Sadly, rain and thunderstorms were predicted throughout the day in southeast Michigan, northwest Ohio, and southwest Ontario.

The rainy weather didn’t matter much to this Killdeer, which I found standing near a puddle of water at Willow Run Airport in Van Buren Township, Michigan. Continue reading Photo of the Week: Wet Day of Birding for First October Big Day