The Big Sit!

Back on Sunday, October 12, I tried a new kind of birding for the first time: a Big Sit! And contrary to my expectations, it was really a lot of fun!

What’s a “Big Sit?” It’s the birding equivalent of a tailgate party -- except that the sporting activity is happening at the party, not inside a nearby stadium, and the players and partiers are the same people. Basically, a Big Sit is yet another way for birders to enjoy -- and, of course, count! -- lots of birds. It’s also yet another fun way to strategize about how to see more birds.

You might have heard of other crazy birding rituals like The World Series of Birding, Bird-a-thon or a Big Day, all of which involve seeing as many different bird species as you can in 24 hours. It almost goes without saying that these events involve moving from place to place in search of birds. But a Big Sit is different…

The object of a Big Sit is to tally as many bird species as you can see or hear within 24 hours without leaving a 17-foot diameter circle. You can have spotting scopes, a ladder (to see further), hi-tech listening devices, a barbeque grill, a jazz trio and whatever else you want within that circle. But ya gotta stay in the circle when you’re counting birds.

Funky, huh?

“Birding’s Most Sedentary Event”
There are other “sedentary” birding events like the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Project FeederWatch and the Great Backyard Bird Count. But these let you roam around your house or yard, which define the area you’re birding. A Big Sit is different in two important ways. One, you have to stay in a 17-foot diameter circle. Two -- and this is a big part of the strategy and fun -- you get to pick where you draw the circle.

The first Big Sit was held by the New Haven (Connecticut) Bird Club in 1993. Today, the Big Sit is an “official,” annual, international, non-competitive birding event coordinated by the magazine Bird Watcher’s Digest.

Here’s a link to the official Big Sit! web page: view link

The Big Sit is held each year on a single day in mid-October. (This year’s date was Sunday, October 12.) Mid-October is in the midst of fall migration, a good time to see many different kinds of birds as they move past a well-chosen spot. Find a place with a good view of a variety of habitats, plunk down a lawn chair and… start birding!

The event is free and open to everybody on the planet, and you can set your circle up wherever you want. So you can participate with friends, members of your bird club or Audubon Society -- maybe even host a Big Sit party.

The Rules
The rules for a Big Sit effort are pretty simple:

1] Observations can only be made from within a 17-foot (diameter) circle.

2] Other than the obvious physical limitations, there is no limit on the number of participants, over the course of the 24 hours or at any one time. Nobody has to stay for any particular length of time and everyone can come and go as much as they want.

3] You can’t move your circle.

4] You can only count birds you see and hear from within the circle. If you see or hear a bird from within the circle, but it’s too distant and you can’t quite identify it, you can leave the circle to check it out for confirmation purposes. However, you can’t count any new bird seen or heard while prowling around confirming the original, unless someone within the circle also sees/hears it.

5] The sit lasts 24 hours, from 12:00 midnight to midnight. (Anyone fancy some owling?)

The Golden Bird
Though the Big Sit is noncompetitive, participating (provided you “register” your circle with Bird Watcher’s Digest) is sort of like entering a lottery. Every circle has a chance to win the Golden Bird award.

To select the Golden Bird, the names of all species seen collectively by all US- and Canada-based Big Sit circles are tallied. The name of one “golden” North American bird species is drawn at random from that list. (Past Golden Birds include Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker, Common Moorhen and White-tailed Hawk.) Every circle where the Golden Bird was recorded is entered into another random drawing, from which is pulled the winning circle. The prize is $500 donated by Swarovski Optik, which the winner is required to donate in turn to a non-profit, environmental organization like a bird club, Audubon chapter or land trust.

Obviously, if the Golden Bird is rare or has a limited distribution, comparatively fewer circles have a chance to win. When White-tailed Hawk (a species confined in the US to South Texas) was selected, for example, only one circle had seen it, so they automatically won.

Many bird clubs and other organizations use the Big Sit as a fundraiser. Donors might pledge $1 per species encountered, for instance, or a fixed amount.

If your circle sees the most birds of any single circle in North America or in your state/province, you win Big Sit “braggin’ rights” on that level. Mostly the Big Sit is an excuse to be outside birding on a (hopefully) beautiful fall day. Birders participate in the Big Sit from all over the world, including Central America, India, Southeast Asia, Europe, and New Zealand.

My Big Sit experience
Our Big Sit was sponsored by Maine Audubon and hosted by my Birdathon teammates Turk and Linda from the Scarborough Marsh Audubon Center Mighty Marsh Muckers. So naturally I wanted to help out! Our circle was drawn in the “north meadow” at Maine Audubon’s Gilsland Farm headquarters property, overlooking a field and a small estuary with mudflats, saltmarsh grass and cattails at the mouth of the Presumpscot River. A small wooded area and some “edge” habitat were also in view. We set out feeders a week in advance, sowed the area with millet, and set up an 8-foot stepladder.

I showed up at 5AM, just in time for the dawn chorus (and to wake up a snoozing and semi-frozen Turk). By the time I had to leave at 9AM we had almost 50 species! Highlights were Virginia Rail (which replied to a recording of its call), Nelson’s Sharp-tailed Sparrow, Nashville Warbler and Pine Siskin. Eventually the team tallied seven species of raptors, a number of shorebirds including American Golden-Plover, and darn near every sparrow you’d halfway expect to see in Maine in the fall. Our final total was 64 species -- pretty darn good!

Nine birders participated altogether and a number of people stopped by to well-wish and inquire about what was going on. I’m already looking forward to next year!

Peace and good birding,
Scott Cronenweth
Eons birding mentor
www.naturalpathwalks.com