biking birder 2010
Well-known member
Tomorrow is EARTH DAY and there is a great way that you can participate.
That's by joining in with the GREEN BIG DAY.
Last year's event GREEN BIG DAY - GBD-1 for short, was a new event for the birding calendar and happened around the first weekend of May. This involved teams from the UK, the USA and Australia. The idea was for teams to see as many bird species in one day, the usual bird race format; the difference being that the method of transport had to be ‘Green’. Birders cycled or walked. It would have been great to have had a team that kayaked!
Birders listed and competed and saw their birds in the pleasing knowledge that no carbon had been expended except maybe for the extra bananas needed to keep going.
Two accounts typify the day from last year.
Chris Mills and Nick Moran cycled their way around Norfolk for the day and set what must be a British Green Day List Record of 144.
A full account of their brilliant, amazing feat may be found at:
http://www.birdguides.com/webzine/article.asp?a=2714
Then there was the wonderful moral victory enjoyed by Sue Rowe. She took on the mighty British Twitcher Lee Evans in his own backyard; he in a car, she on foot with a friend and both Sue and Lee ended a day’s birding on 79 bird species. I say moral as I feel it is a moral duty of us all, especially those with a love of nature, to be as Green as possible.
My name is Gary Prescott and previously I was known as the Biking Birder 2010. In that year I cycled to every RSPB and Wildfowl & Wetland Trust. A whole year of birding; a year of enjoying the delights of the two worst winters that ironically Britain had suffered for many a year. In that year I set a new British Green Bird List record of 253 birds; beating the record previously held by the fore-mentioned Chris Mills. If you wish to read about my adventures then they may be found in a diary format at:
www.bikingbirder2010.blogspot.com
or you may like to google my name or Biking Birder 2010.
Now I’m contacting you to ask you to participate in this year’s event. In the USA it started on April the 14th, an early date that took into account the differences in migration zones from coastal to mountain, and it runs through to May the 14th.
In Europe the date for the Green Big Day is the weekend, May 5th & 6th; though obviously you're free to organise your GREEN BIG DAY on any dates within the US month if you prefer.
If you are going to participate, and I sincerely hope that you do, please register on the website;
www.greenbigday.org
This is the main website hosting all the details.
Please promote this event with your friends, colleagues and local bird clubs. Tell the press what you are doing and why. Maybe your local school could be involved in some way. Their students are the future and involving them may bring young people into a better way of life than sitting in a box staring at a box. A sub-culture of teenage and 20 something green birders would be something to get really excited about and it would bring back those pioneering spirit of birding back in the 70s with adventures of those long gone days still being talked about by the crowds at every major twitch. Let’s give them something to talk about when they’re older. “Remember that day we cycled 50 miles and saw 100 birds?”
The possibilities for this event are endless and it would be fabulous to see the GREEN BIG DAY grow in the way that Earth Hour has grown. [Only 345 days to go to Earth Hour 2013!].
All the very best to you,
Gary B. Prescott
That's by joining in with the GREEN BIG DAY.
Last year's event GREEN BIG DAY - GBD-1 for short, was a new event for the birding calendar and happened around the first weekend of May. This involved teams from the UK, the USA and Australia. The idea was for teams to see as many bird species in one day, the usual bird race format; the difference being that the method of transport had to be ‘Green’. Birders cycled or walked. It would have been great to have had a team that kayaked!
Birders listed and competed and saw their birds in the pleasing knowledge that no carbon had been expended except maybe for the extra bananas needed to keep going.
Two accounts typify the day from last year.
Chris Mills and Nick Moran cycled their way around Norfolk for the day and set what must be a British Green Day List Record of 144.
A full account of their brilliant, amazing feat may be found at:
http://www.birdguides.com/webzine/article.asp?a=2714
Then there was the wonderful moral victory enjoyed by Sue Rowe. She took on the mighty British Twitcher Lee Evans in his own backyard; he in a car, she on foot with a friend and both Sue and Lee ended a day’s birding on 79 bird species. I say moral as I feel it is a moral duty of us all, especially those with a love of nature, to be as Green as possible.
My name is Gary Prescott and previously I was known as the Biking Birder 2010. In that year I cycled to every RSPB and Wildfowl & Wetland Trust. A whole year of birding; a year of enjoying the delights of the two worst winters that ironically Britain had suffered for many a year. In that year I set a new British Green Bird List record of 253 birds; beating the record previously held by the fore-mentioned Chris Mills. If you wish to read about my adventures then they may be found in a diary format at:
www.bikingbirder2010.blogspot.com
or you may like to google my name or Biking Birder 2010.
Now I’m contacting you to ask you to participate in this year’s event. In the USA it started on April the 14th, an early date that took into account the differences in migration zones from coastal to mountain, and it runs through to May the 14th.
In Europe the date for the Green Big Day is the weekend, May 5th & 6th; though obviously you're free to organise your GREEN BIG DAY on any dates within the US month if you prefer.
If you are going to participate, and I sincerely hope that you do, please register on the website;
www.greenbigday.org
This is the main website hosting all the details.
Please promote this event with your friends, colleagues and local bird clubs. Tell the press what you are doing and why. Maybe your local school could be involved in some way. Their students are the future and involving them may bring young people into a better way of life than sitting in a box staring at a box. A sub-culture of teenage and 20 something green birders would be something to get really excited about and it would bring back those pioneering spirit of birding back in the 70s with adventures of those long gone days still being talked about by the crowds at every major twitch. Let’s give them something to talk about when they’re older. “Remember that day we cycled 50 miles and saw 100 birds?”
The possibilities for this event are endless and it would be fabulous to see the GREEN BIG DAY grow in the way that Earth Hour has grown. [Only 345 days to go to Earth Hour 2013!].
All the very best to you,
Gary B. Prescott
