At The Finish Line

Surfbird, final bird of Mr Sutherland's Amazing Bird Race, final total 541

Today marks the end of a great birding year. Over 30,000 miles traveled, in parts of 40 states. I saw 25 life birds and a total of 541 species. The most fun however was sharing the adventure with you students and feeding off of your enthusiasm. It was sometimes challenging to find and video a bird of the week but it kept me on my toes and was so much fun to watch you use the tools that you learned to identify what bird it was. I loved your journals and the fun stuff you wrote about the birds and the sermons that you shared with the area churches were great. I hope that some of you will continue to be inspired by nature and a few might even become birders as well. It is a great reason to get out in the woods. Thank you so much for being a part of my big year.


So now that you have an bit of an understanding of how a birder thinks, you will appreciate this next challenge. Having started a big year in the middle of the 2014 calendar, it overlapped the calendar year of 2015. Since January 1 I have recorded 498 species, only 43 less than the wraparound big year I shared with you. I just can't resist letting that momentum go, it took a lot of work and expenses to get that far, so I am going to continue the big year pursuit four more months. We are heading to the east to visit our children in Tennessee so we must go to Florida where I believe I can get a minimum of sixty more birds. I have my eye on something over 600 for the Calendar year so it will be interesting to see if I can make it. I have two questions. Are any of you interested in following the rest of the adventure if I were to continue blog posts? Also, would you like me to put up an occasional “Bird of the Week” challenge or have you had enough of that?


Again, thank you for sharing my adventure and have a great school year.

I couldn't resist so here is Bird of the Week 38.  This was filmed just north of Sisters and should be an easy one.  Good luck and happy birding.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X2RkOnnudY