Each year, I look forward to an autonomously motivated event where myself and trusted birding companions try to see as many bird species as possible in one, 24 hour date. That is, we do a Big Day, and it is preceded by far too many hours of planning and sorting out probabilities, Such scheming is necessary because it all comes down to probability, each factor playing a distinct role in determing the final count. Regular readers of this blog will already be aware of our attempt this past March.
I think it was a good plan, that beginning in Cano Negro, a jaunt through the humid forests in the Arenal area, and a hot, dry finish at Chomes, but morning rain prevented us from giving that route the full, power birding test. Getting rained out was disappointing to say the least. Instead of testing the Big Day route, it ended up being a Zen-test of my ability to accept changes that ruined my super important plans for that one day out of the year when we could maybe break the Big Day world record..(in the famous “words” of Charlie Brown, “Arggh!”). Well, since hoping for clear weather in rainforest on just one day is always a silly gamble, I couldn’t really be that surprised or upset.
BUT, much to my surprise, thanks to Cornell Lab’s Team Sapsucker and their Global Big Day idea, here I am, once again, about to do another Big Day! The Global Big Day is the perfect excuse to give this thing another shot. With most of the small migrants serenading birders in Ohio, I did not foresee May as being an ideal time of the year for this endeavor, and it really isn’t but, according to eBird, there are more migrants in Costa Rica right now than I expected. No, not a lot, and we would see more in February or March, but there are more chances at various bird species than I had hoped.
On a plus note, we have a better chance at shorebirds, and more birds will be singing. This will also be a slightly more comfortable Big Day because, no, we will not be listening for birds in dark places at the stroke of midnight. Nope, no exploration of Medio Queso in the middle of the night. Instead, we will start the night-birding at 3 am and be in one of the best forested sites in the country in the pre-dawn hours. My hope is that the dawn chorus will give us several rare forest birds that we would not have gotten otherwise. Since we will be staying at a biological station, we will also have the luxury of a Big Day, sit down breakfast! Well, in all honesty, we will probably be standing up and scanning the canopy while wolfing down the morning vittles but they will be fresh and hot!
Then, it’s off and up the road to San Ramon with brief stops to scan the sky and canopy for raptors, swifts, swallows, and treetop birds, check a small marsh and other small wetlands, and make another stop in cloud forest. We hope that the birds in moist forest near San Ramon will jump up and sing, that the highway down to Chomes is open (along with a flyby Fiery-billed Aracari and singing Scaly-breasted Wren porfavor), and then it’s off to Chomes for a whole new set of birds. Will we break 300 species? Will we find a Great Jacamar? Will it be another test of Zen? Find out next week!