Hello All--
Although this news is off-topic, it is posted with permission of the eList owner since it involves quite a few birders who are active within the Cayugabirds community—and because it helps bird conservation! Starting at midnight tomorrow, the Cornell student team, "The Redheads," will compete in the World Series of Birding in three categories: New Jersey statewide (Hope Batcheller, Ben Barkley, Benjamin Van Doren, Brendan Fogarty, Andy Johnson, Luke Seitz), county (Eric Gulson, Graham Montgomery, David Weber, Tim Healy, Teresa Pegan), and "Big Stay" (Drew Dreelin, Eric Sibbald, Mary Margaret Ferraro, Nathaniel Hernandez). The goal of this 24-hour event is to raise funds for conservation. A donor will match all gifts up to $25,000 to support undergraduate research and conservation projects. The students are trying to raise $7,500 toward this overall goal through a crowdfunding campaign. They are 45% of the way there. Here is a link to a video about the students and a page where you can make a donation if you'd like to help them meet their goal: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/cornell-lab-redhead-student-fund<%20https:/www.indiegogo.com/projects/cornell-lab-redhead-student-fund> Also, the Lab's Team Sapsucker (Jessie Barrie, Andrew Farnsworth, Marshall Iliff, Tim Lenz, Brian Sullivan, Chris Wood) found 275 species on their Big Day in California and Arizona on May 3. It is the highest Big Day score ever reported from the region and in North America it is second only to the record the Sapsuckers set in Texas last year. So far they have raised $360,000 toward their $400,000 goal for bird conservation. Here is a blog post describing their adventure: http://blog.allaboutbirds.org/2014/05/06/big-day-birding-275-species-california-arizona / Thanks to all of you who have supported bird conservation by making a Big Day pledge or gift for the Lab's staff and student teams! Marc Devokaitis on behalf of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
