Welcome to our Big Year count!
The Big Year is the nickname for a year long count to find as many species as possible in a given area. Most Big Years involve counting birds, but any count could be done including mammals, insects, or reptiles. Some counts include the entire country (people fly all around the nation during prime birding times), a state, or just a selected area. The Coastal Bend Bays & Estuaries Program Education Staff will be counting all the birds seen on the Nueces Delta Preserve and we’d love for your class to help us!
We will be storing our data on ebird.org, a website run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society. In order to submit your class’ data, keep a record of the name and number of each species seen during your field trip. You can always ask an educator if you need help identifying a bird.
Once you return to school there are two ways to submit your data.
1. Email us at education@cbbep.org to get our log in information and submit the data yourself to ebird
OR
2. You can email us your species list at education@cbbep.org and we will submit it for you.
To view our data:
Go to ebird.org and look on the right hand side of the home page. It should have a list called “Most Checklists Submitted for Current Month”. Select Texas from the list. This brings up the entire Texas list, at the top select “Change Location”. On the new screen re-select Texas as your region, and then select “Hotspots” on the right hand side, then hit continue. This brings up the entire list of Texas hotspots. Click on Nueces Delta Preserve, which should bring up our list. You can sort the list by date starting Jan.1, 2011 which should display all the species seen this year at the Delta.
Want to know more about doing a Big Year? Check out these books which follow birders during their adventures to spot the most birds!
The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature and Fowl Obsession by Mark Obmascik (in production to be a movie)
Chasing Birds across Texas: A Birding Big Year by Mark Thomas Adams