Last year we did some collective bird lists for the 1st of January, following a suggestion from dantheman. By combining sightings by various BirdForum members we totalled 155 UK species, despite uniformly dreadful weather, and I think it ended up as 185 in the US.
The idea is for people either to post their lists for the day, or even better to just post a list of what they saw that no-one else has reported yet. Obviously it helps if you've seen something unusual, but someone somewhere will need to add robin to the list, so it might as well be you. Last year I was the only person to report a tawny owl and there were several relatively common species that no-one saw, so this really is open to all ability levels (and none).
It's just a bit of fun, so don't go drastically changing your plans for the day, but if we persuade one or two people to go out birding then so much the better.
The "rules" last year was that birds could be seen or heard, as long as the id was firm and it was on the right date (no sneaking in some incredible mega you saw at dawn on the 2nd).
Last year's thread here, if you're interested.
The idea is for people either to post their lists for the day, or even better to just post a list of what they saw that no-one else has reported yet. Obviously it helps if you've seen something unusual, but someone somewhere will need to add robin to the list, so it might as well be you. Last year I was the only person to report a tawny owl and there were several relatively common species that no-one saw, so this really is open to all ability levels (and none).
It's just a bit of fun, so don't go drastically changing your plans for the day, but if we persuade one or two people to go out birding then so much the better.
The "rules" last year was that birds could be seen or heard, as long as the id was firm and it was on the right date (no sneaking in some incredible mega you saw at dawn on the 2nd).
Last year's thread here, if you're interested.