What a magnificent display of global unity in support of birds the Global Big Day is.
Each year, Global Birding takes part by encouraging teams and individuals to participate under their banner. Wader Quest enters an international team called, imaginatively, WaderQuestTeam. Last year we achieved third place in the Global Birding results. Spurred by this success our co-founders, Rick and Elis Simpson decided to have a go at winning the category. They wrote to everyone who participated last year and urged them to do so again this year and invited many new people to join the team. They contacted friends and colleagues around the world and asked them to share their checklists with Wader Quest, as well as asking complete strangers through social media to join the fun, and some did.
The result was a resounding success with 1,617 species recorded on the WaderQuestTeam eBird account.
Global Birding’s team event is part of the eBird and Cornell’s Global Big Day, but, by design, entrants scores do not necessarily appear on the Big Day lists. Ours didn’t, but, had it done so, it appears we would have come out as the top team in that too, so Wader Quest really is on top of the birding world.
Sadly we cannot respond to all contributors individually as their email address is not displayed on eBird, but we had lists from the following 23 countries; (in alphabetical order) Anguilla, Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, China, England, Ecuador, France, Hungary, India, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Norway, Paraguay, South Africa, Scotland, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, USA and Venezuela. A big thank you to all our correspondents and team members.
Rick and Elis’ personal day total reached 99 species, which they found somewhat frustrating as they didn’t count them until they had finished and then, despite being tired after a long day, stayed up until midnight in the hope of hearing the local Tawny Owl calling to make it a round 100, but alas it stayed silent. They wished to express thanks to John Money who shared his local knowledge to help them achieve this total.
We should send a big thank you to Iqbal Ahmad who co-ordinated a fantastic effort across India with Asian Adventures India guides adding close to 500 species between them
A big thank you to the following people who, either sent us a list, or were mentioned as an additional observer by the person who did;
Anguilla; Jackie Cestero. Australia; Jake Barker, David Bromet, Broome Bird Observatory (8 observers), Andrea Endecott, Olivia Garcey, Kerry Hadley, Julie Keating (5 observers), Jasmin Pratt, David Secomb, Angus, Ben, Lachie & Will Vasic. Brazil; Jhonathan Araujo, Karina Ávila, Quetzalli Ávila-Lima, Rogerio Eduardo Almeida Barboza, Pedro Behne, Marcio Carvalho, Bruno Lima, Rafael Lopes, Guto Magalhães, Marcio Motta, Bruno Neri, Rodrigo Passos, Allan Clé Porto, Israel dos Santos, Felipe Henrique Santos, Andrew & Catarina Simpson. Bulgaria; Liudmila Karukina. China; Chris Hassell, Katherine Leung. England; Simon Ashley, Chris Balchin, Roberta Goodall, Karen & Phil Hadley, Damian Money, Rob Page, Tim Ridgeway, Ciaran Shaman, Elis & Rick Simpson. Ecuador; Thalia Grant (Galapagos). France; Malo Braquier (Mayotte), Jean-François Cornuaille (Réunion), Pascaline Dourthe-Sorin. Hungary; Khawla Bouali. India; Ajay, Nekib Ali, Dorjee Bachung, Radheshyam Pemani Bishnoi, Rajeev Bisht, Ankit Das, Salil Dutta, Sheikh Haris, K D Kargeti, Suraj Khulal, Deepak Kumar, Kundan Kumar, Pawan Kumar, Prashant Kumar, Vinod KV, Mehmood Multani, Pankaj, Mahesh Rajpoot, Amit Ram, Gajendra Singh, Mahendra Singh, Chetu Sitapara, Phunchok Tsering. Italy; Chris Newton (Sardinia). Japan; Rob Edmunds. Lithuania; Vita Augutė. New Zealand; Elizabeth Bell, Susan Cook, Kristin House, Paul Garner-Richards, Marie-Louise Ward. Northern Ireland; Rick Else, Hazel Watson. Norway; Adrian Boyle. Paraguay; Rob Clay Scotland; Penny Insole, Andrew Whitelee. South Africa; Celia Human, Sue Oertli, Niall D Perrins, Jenny & Peter Sharland, Amanda & Dennis Walden. Spain; Chuck Gates, Yanina Maggiotto. Sweden; Karin Johnson, Oskar Löfgren, Honor Prentice. Thailand; Wich’yanan Limparungpatthanakij, Jens Toettrup. United States; Rainy Cai, Norman Ellstrand, Peter & Rosemary Grant, Tong Mu, Brittney Sheridan, David Wilcove. Venezuela; Phil Gunson.
Of course, the biggest thank you must go to Tim Appleton and Penny Robinson, that hard working and indefatigable duo that are Global Birding. Collating the results and publishing them in such a timely fashion is a painstaking task, as the Wader Quest team knows only too well from the Wader Conservation World Watch event every November. Many birders and teams get to enjoy this event through Global Birding as we do, so we are always grateful to them for setting up the platform that allows us to do so.
Please note that we do not take part in the same way for the October version of this event as it is too close to our own Wader Conservation World Watch. But, if you want to be part of the winning team next year… watch this space.
Wader Quest will be at Global Birdfair again this year (11th – 13th July; Lindon Top, Rutland), come and visit our stand and say hello and chat to us about Waders! Rick Simpson will be giving a talk on Saturday12th at 11:30 in Curlew Lecture Marquee ‘Wader Questing Down-under Pt 2 New Zealand’ a sequel to last year’s talk you will be transported to New Zealand where new waders (and mishaps) await.
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