This is a very easy column to write although, perhaps, a somewhat oblique one. Most people who enter North America’s most celebrated birding contest want to win this event. But since only one team is going to win and there are over 100 registered teams, losing teams constitute a much larger audience.
Hint to aspiring writers: Art doesn’t pay the bills. Write for the market.
Back in the day… (from left to right) Pete Dunne, David Sibley, Bill Boyle, and Pete Bacinski.
And while I’ve been in 24 World Series of Birding events, I’ve only been on a winning team 4 times. By my math, this means I’ve lost 20 times.
Very few participants can claim to have lost this event 20 times (in fact, perhaps only one!). Therefore I am much, much better suited to expound upon losing this event than winning it.
In fact, I’m the reigning expert!
So how do you go about losing the World Series of Birding–the 24-hour contest to see who can find the most bird species in a single day all in New Jersey?
First, make sure your teammates agree on nothing. Routes, lunch menu, and whether the coffee in the thermos should be French Roast or Kenyan. Then make sure they are exhausted by a week of scouting. Then make sure none of them sleep prior to the midnight start. Then announce half an hour from the motel and five minutes to midnight:
“Uh, I think I left my binoculars in the room.”
This, plus discovering that you actually put your binoculars in your day pack after returning to the hotel, will put everyone in a winning (meaning surly) mood.
Second, outfit the entire team in fresh, new triple-ply Gortex jackets that will make every movement sound like a grip-challenged, 800 pound gorilla scraping for the last chips in the bag. Not only won’t you be able to hear birds you won’t be able to direct anyone to the sound in the unlikely event that you do hear a drumming grouse.
Third, add spontaneous stops to an already over-loaded route. If you had a Willow Flycatcher singing along some unscouted dirt road three years ago, do by all means invest ten minutes and check it out. Not only won’t the bird be there, but you might get really lucky and get your wheels stuck in a Hummer-swallowing pot hole.
Fourth, don’t keep your list up–i.e. don’t check species off as you find them. This way when you get to Tom’s River and discover that you haven’t tallied a Black-capped Chickadee you’re screwed.
You’re in Carolina Chickadee land now, pal. Ain’t nuthin’ you can do about it.
Fifth, when you get to Brigantine National Wildlife Refuge, make sure you study every peep. Never mind that you’ve already got Least, Semipalmated, and White-rumped Sandpiper. After all there could be a Western Sandpiper tucked in the tens of thousands of feeding birds. And someday somebody is going to find a Spring Baird’s Sandpiper.
Make “ok….just give me one more minnnnnnnn (…ute)” a mind set. Consider this: if you dawdle just one minute more for every stop and stop twenty times that’s twenty minutes!
The twenty minutes you are not going to have at the end of the day. The twenty minutes you planned to use marching down to the end of South Cape May to get Piping Plover.
Ever try to find a sand colored bird on the sand in the dark? Most losing teams do at some point in their losing careers.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, when it becomes clear that the Fates (and your conjoined blunders) have conspired against you, give up. Stop trying. Blame your performance on “the weather” or “the early date” or “the absence of a fallout” and then start arguing about the bird heard sixteen hours ago–that might have been an American Bittern but was actually the growling stomach of a hungry team mate.
You’ll be so heated up that you’ll miss the turnoff to the Whip-poor-will site and not discover the error until you are too lost and it’s too late to get to the finish line in time.
And don’t forget, you lose one bird from your list for every five minutes you are late.
Stop en route for coffee. There’s got to be a WAWA around somewhere.
Learn all about the World Series of Birding on BirdCapeMay.org—the countdown clock is ticking down the days, hours, minutes…
After the 25th annual WSB on May 10th we’ll post the 2008 Winners along with details and photos from the big day.
Good Luck to all WSB participants!