Photo: Yellow Warbler, Sheen Watkins/Audubon Photography Awards
Tom Blackburn
Our chapter’s annual Birdathon competition raised a record amount of money and found a record number of birds this year. Birdathon is a friendly competition among teams of birders. It has two goals: to raise money for ASNV and to find the most birds within our chapter’s boundaries in a 24-hour period.
Eleven teams raised $12,059, beating last year’s total by more than $1,000. The Board Birders, a team of ASNV board members Gerry Abbott, Tom Blackburn, Libby Lyons, and Dixie Sommers, won the fundraising competition. The Chipper Birders, teenaged brothers Dante and Maxwell Julius, came in second. The Three Beaks team of Louise and Bart Edsall and Salay Kamara came in third.
The Drake and Two Chicks team of Greg Fleming, Elizabeth Krone and Laura McDonald was the runaway winner in the bird species competition. They logged 123 species, an ASNV record. The Board Birders came in second with 92 species, followed by the Chipper Birders with 85. See more about the Chipper Birders in our December 2020 article and a recent news article on WUSA Channel 9.
The Scarlet Teenagers, a bird club sponsored by Flint Hill High School biology teacher Fred Atwood, deserves an honorable mention this year. The club raised money for ASNV in connection with a birding field trip to the Eastern Shore. Because they counted birds outside ASNV’s chapter boundaries, their total doesn’t count in the species competition, but the 120 species they saw is a testament to their birding skills.
The seven Birdathon teams that reported their bird species for the competition saw a total of 143 species, a reminder of how rich the bird life is in Northern Virginia. They saw 25 warbler species, or nearly all the warblers that are normally found here during spring migration. Other birds of interest included a Common Loon, a tree full of Bobolinks, and a Horned Grebe.
Thank you to all the teams that participated in the Birdathon. And thank you especially to the more than 100 people who supported our fundraiser. Your donations make it possible for ASNV to fulfill our mission of engaging all Northern Virginia communities in enjoying, conserving, and restoring nature for the benefit of birds, other wildlife, and people.