Be a part of the biggest day in birding: Global Big Day—14 May (1 Viewer)

[idaviesbird]

How many birds can be seen in a single day? The UK bird race record is 178. In the US, 294. Last July in Peru, Sean Williams did a bird race on foot, traveling 18.15km and finding 345 species! In October 2015, Dušan Brinkhuizen Rudy Gelis, Mitch Lysinger, and Tuomas Seimola recorded 431 species in Ecuador, a new world record.

Bird race totals for a single party of birders have always pushed the limits, but how about for the global community? Imagine if everyone in the world came together for a single calendar day to record bird sightings. Could we document half the species in the world in a single day? More?

This theory was put to the test in 2015, when 14,000 people across 135 countries joined together for the first ever Global Big Day, contributing 45,000 checklists and recording 6,085 species in one day. That’s about 60% of the world’s birds, and participation from 54% of the world’s countries!

This year, thousands of people from around the world will try to make 14 May the biggest day of birding the world has ever seen. Can we reach 7,000 species this year?

In 2016, will you be a part of the Global Big Day? Learn more at ebird.org/globalbigday/.

 

[idaviesbird]

Global Big Day has begun in much of the world, and you can follow along with near real-time results here: http://ebird.org/ebird/globalbigday. It isn't to late to join in the fun either!

 

[Nutcracker]

Looking at the 'Latest Additions', I see compulsory Americanisation (sorry, AmericaniZation, yukk) of the bird names . . . pretty disgusting cultural imperialism, for the 95% of the world that's not in the USA.

I'll not be entering until I can see my results posted as Grey Heron, European Golden Plover, etc.

 

[StarBurst6]

Seems interesting. It's the morning of 14th May where I am, is this still going on?

 

[fugl]

Looking at the 'Latest Additions', I see compulsory Americanisation (sorry, AmericaniZation, yukk) of the bird names . . . pretty disgusting cultural imperialism, for the 95% of the world that's not in the USA.

I'll not be entering until I can see my results posted as Grey Heron, European Golden Plover, etc.

Tut, tut, I'd thought you'd gotten over all that. Actually, since the majority of native speakers of English are American, it's only just and reasonable that our spellings rule in these cases. (Except, of course, for the AOU's imbecilic hyphenation conventions. On that at least, we can agree.).

 

[Sangahyando]

Looking at the 'Latest Additions', I see compulsory Americanisation (sorry, AmericaniZation, yukk) of the bird names . . . pretty disgusting cultural imperialism, for the 95% of the world that's not in the USA.

I'll not be entering until I can see my results posted as Grey Heron, European Golden Plover, etc.

Just set your eBird account language to French ||

 

[idaviesbird]

Looking at the 'Latest Additions', I see compulsory Americanisation (sorry, AmericaniZation, yukk) of the bird names . . . pretty disgusting cultural imperialism, for the 95% of the world that's not in the USA.

I'll not be entering until I can see my results posted as Grey Heron, European Golden Plover, etc.

Hi Nutcracker,

We actually support bird names in more than 20 languages and 20 regional spellings/dialects within those languages—you can see the options here: help.ebird.org/customer/portal/articles/1596582. If you go into Preferences when you're logged in on eBird, you can display names however you'd choose!

 

[Nutcracker]

But will they still be shown in English in the final results on the globalbigday web page?

 

[kb57]

I'll not be entering until I can see my results posted as Grey Heron, European Golden Plover, etc.

Wikipedia entry on American and British spelling differences:
'Grey became the established British spelling in the 20th century, pace Dr Johnson and others, and it is but a minor variant in American English, according to dictionaries. Canadians tend to prefer grey. The non-cognate greyhound was never grayhound given that grighund is the origin of the word. Both Grey and Gray are found in proper names everywhere in the English-speaking world. The two spellings are of equal antiquity, and the Oxford English Dictionary states that "each of the current spellings has some analogical support" '

US birders following IOC taxonomy have to put up with 'Grey Jay', with the justification that the English spelling is listed as an alternative in American dictionaries. So I didn't think having to follow Cornell English names should put me off participating in the Global Big Day, and had a great day birding in your home county of Northumberland on Saturday 14th.

FWIW capitalisation of English language bird names sets my teeth on edge, given the scientific convention of lower-case English names unless they are proper nouns ('Slavonian grebe' or 'horned grebe')...but BOU justify capitalisation by making the point that they are agreed by naming authorities, and journals such as 'Bird Study' capitalise, so I guess I have to accept I'm very much in the minority with that one.

It is a pity if eBird doesn't gain better acceptance in Europe - in seems like a great project to harness birder's efforts around the world, and the fact that it is based in USA shouldn't put us off using it.