We inadvertently left out the names of the winning team members. Pteam
Ptarmigeddon: Tim Dunn, John Gluth, Pete Morris, and Taylor Sturm.
Contrary to some rumors floating around, the omission was not a further
example of malfeasance on the part of the Outlaws, now dethroned as the
Masked Tityras!
Patricia Lindsay
Bay Shore
On Sun, Oct 4, 2020 at 4:34 PM Shaibal Mitra
wrote:
> The Seatuck Long Island Birding Challenge was conducted on Saturday, 26
> September, for the seventh year. We thank Enrico Nardone, Stephane
> Perreault and others at Seatuck for the effort and care they devoted to
> revising and refining the rules to ensure participants’ fun and safety in
> this strange pandemic period.
>
> The rules changes driven by covid concerns included a requirement that
> each team restrict its activities to a single county (or in the case of
> sprawling Suffolk County, to either the four western towns or the more
> easterly towns), but also relaxed the requirement for team members to
> travel and bird together. In combination, this probably improved overall
> coverage of the island and yielded a collective tally of 194 species, 10
> more than the previous highest annual total for this count. This
> achievement is even more notable for having been made on a signiciantly
> later data and on a much less active migration day than that of the
> previous high tally. Also notable was our failure, for the first time in
> seven challenges, to add any new species to the cumulative species list,
> which still stands at 235. This is further evidence of the overall
> thoroughness of the teams this year in detecting uncommon, hard to find,
> and localized species, even in the absence of rarities.
>
> We had 8 teams in the field, with a total of 29 participants, and each of
> the five designated areas was represented. As noted above, it was not a
> major flight day, but the weather was mostly very benign all day long,
> without heavy winds or other impediments to birding effort. It was 63-75 F,
> overcast with good visibility in most places early, then warming up with
> sun. The biggest issue was patchy fog in the morning that reduced
> visibility for some.
>
> Area champions were:
> Brooklyn: Rails Against the Machine (Shane Blodgett, Rob Jett, Heydi
> Lopes, Tom Preston, and Mike Yuan) coming in at 108.
>
> Queens: Ladybyrders (Mary Normandia, Lisa Scheppke, Amy Simmons, Meryl
> Ackley, and Phil Ribilow), tallying 111 species.
>
> Eastern Suffolk: Masked Tityras (Patricia Lindsay, Shai Mitra, Mike Cooper
> and Doug Futuyma) coming in with 130. Three additional teams covered
> Eastern Suffolk: The Bushwackers (Richard Gostic and Bob McGrath), Savage
> Trackers (Stephen and Bob Savage), and The TWIN ROSE breasted Grosbeaks
> (Raina Angelier, Cayla, Iris and Craig Rosenhagen).
>
> And finally, the two leading teams achieved totals only two species apart:
>
> The Classic Birders (Tim Healy, Matt Klein, Ryan Mandelbaum, and Stephane
> Perreault), covering Nassau, was the runner-up team with 139 species.
>
> Pteam Ptarmigeddon covered Western Suffolk and came in overall first at
> 141, wresting back the Twitchers Trophy from the Outlaws (whose
> misdemeanors had resulted in their dispersion into different teams). The
> Pteam has competed in the Challenge with the same members every year, won
> the trophy the first three years, and is now back on top.
>
> Every single team had a least one “save,” a species not recorded by any
> other team. Tied for third were Pteam Ptarmigeddon and The Classic Birders,
> with 5 saves each. Second place went to Ladybyrders with 6 saves. The
> winner of the informal Hunters’ Hoard award (a cache of canned spinach,
> creamed corn, cream of mushroom soup, cling peaches, sardines, and Fancy
> Feast ) was the Masked Tityras, with 11 saves!
>
> Photos and more information about the event will be updated on the Seatuck
> website shortly:
>
> https://seatuck.org/birding-challenge/
>
> We hope to see everybody back out in the field next year, under less
> stressful circumstances.
>
> Shai Mitra & Patricia Lindsay
> Bay Shore
>
> --
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>
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