264: A new North American Big Day birding record

The Big Day is over and Team Sapsucker has set a new record for the most bird species seen or heard in a 24-hour period in North America. By birding nonstop from midnight to midnight on Friday, April 22, Chris Wood, Marshall Iliff, Brian Sullivan, Jessie Barry, Andrew Farnsworth, and Tim Lenz amassed a total of 264 species—three more than the previous record.

It was fun, it was hard work—and it was a conservation fundraiser. Pledges received so far total nearly $200,000, and there’s still time to make a pledge to help us break that mark. All the raised funds go directly to support conservation work at the Cornell Lab. Thank you to everyone who has supported the Big Day and Team Sapsucker so far.

The Big Day run ended a grueling week of scouting during which the team searched out key birds on their list of more than 300 possibilities. As new sightings came in, the team meticulously revised and streamlined their route to connect as many hotspots in as short a distance as possible. Aiding them in scouting were other Cornell Lab staff who came down for the event, as well as legions of Texas locals who offered advice about patches they’ve been birding for years. Local landowners were generous as well, granting access to private marshes and rich woodlands in a state where public land is scarce. Team Sapsucker is especially grateful to all the Texans who welcomed them and aided their cause.

The day began at midnight with a Yellow-crowned Night-Heron and a Barred Owl in a fashionable riverside section of San Antonio. In what the team later described as “perfect night birding,” the Sapsuckers found about 15 species before dawn, including a Cinnamon Teal on a moonlit wastewater treatment plant, as well as five owl species and three nightjars: Chuck-will’s-widow, Common Poorwill, and Common Pauraque.

At dawn their Toyota minivan was parked at Cooks Slough, a riparian zone near Uvalde, west of San Antonio. Desert birds such as Chihuahuan Raven, Cactus Wren, and Verdin were the draw in the Uvalde area, along with southern specialties such as Green Jay and Audubon’s Oriole. Alas, the Say’s Phoebe that had been hanging around the same fencepost all week seemed to have chosen Thursday night to migrate—it was one of the team’s few misses.

An arc through the Texas Hill Country centered around Neal’s Lodges added two endemic species, the endangered Golden-cheeked Warbler and Black-capped Vireo, along with Hutton’s Vireo, Canyon Wren, and Rufous-crowned Sparrow, and others.

Under Big Day rules, everyone on the team must see 95% of the species on the final list. The remaining 5% are can be seen by fewer than the entire team—Big Day competitors call them “dirty birds.” An example from this year’s Big Day was the Monk Parakeet, a bird the team picked up as they sped through San Antonio on the interstate. Five of the six Sapsuckers raised their binoculars to spot the bird sitting on its nest while the sixth—Marshall Iliff—kept his hands on the steering wheel.

From San Antonio the team headed for the coast for migrants: raptors, shorebirds, and warblers from Victoria’s agricultural fields and Corpus Christi’s barrier beaches. The three-hour drive was an opportunity to refuel on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. (As part of a new space-management plan in the cramped van, the team had reluctantly agreed on only one sandwich type for the day’s meals).

On the way east, the team’s raptor expert, Brian Sullivan, looked out the window and selected a promising-looking kettle of hawks. It turned into one of the day’s highlights, with 400 American White Pelicans soaring among a group of Swainson’s Hawks and Mississippi Kites. A few moments later, Andrew Farnsworth spied a dark fleck moving far above the kettle—a Swallow-tailed Kite only barely within binocular range.

Wetlands and rice fields around Victoria held American Golden-Plover, Baird’s Sandpiper, and Wilson’s Phalarope. These migrants, here to refuel on their way to Arctic breeding grounds, brought the Sapsucker shorebird total to 31 species. Warblers proved harder to find as the week’s hot weather and strong south winds carried many migrating species farther north. Still, by working the coastal woodlands the team pushed the day’s warbler list to 19 species—plus both forms of Yellow-rumped Warbler (eastern Myrtle and western Audubon’s), just in case they are once again split into separate species, as they were for much of the twentieth century.

With daylight fading the team found their 260th species, Eastern Wood-Pewee. If the Sapsuckers were going to set the record, it would have to happen in the dark. The tying species came with a whistled “bob-white!” from a pasture outside Port Aransas, and the go-ahead bird—#262—came with its own applause: a calling Clapper Rail. Two more rails, Virginia and Black, rounded out the day’s list at 264.

With 90 minutes left, the Sapsuckers tried for 265 by staking out a Tropical Kingbird nest Chris Wood and Jessie Barry had found earlier in the week. A few days ago they had confirmed there was enough ambient light to see the bird on its nest even at night. But the day’s high winds had the bird hunkering down over its nest and out of view, and so the record stands at 264.

As midnight struck, the plan was to celebrate with a pizza dinner, but apparently all the pizza places in Rockport, Texas, also close at midnight. And so it was with one more PB&J that the team toasted their victory.

Keep reading for the full list of species the Sapsuckers recorded on the Big Day and their locations (listed in taxonomic order) and see more discussion of the hits and misses on the eBird site: