If this year’s “Global Big Day” didn’t fit into your busy spring schedule, here’s another chance to make your birding count! How about a Big Atlas Weekend? This exciting annual event is a fun way for birders from across the state to document breeding birds and come together as a birding community. For many birds in our area, breeding peaks in late June. It’s a great time to Confirm breeding and fill gaps in the Atlas dataset.
This event is being coordinated across four states and two provinces that are currently conducting breeding bird atlases—Newfoundland, Ontario, New York, Maine, Maryland and DC, and North Carolina.
Schedule
- June 22 @ 6 pm EDT – Kickoff. Introduction by the six Atlas coordinators followed by guest speaker Robyn Bailey, Project Leader at NestWatch. Robyn will be talking about how the data NestWatch collects both complement and differ from atlas data, what kinds of questions NestWatch is answering with those data, and best practices for making high-quality observations on nesting birds (registration required; click this link to register).
- June 23 @ 7 pm EDT – Training for new atlasers in Maryland and DC. New atlasers will be walked through what an atlas is, learn about the essentials needed to participate, and receive general atlasing tips (event details).
- June 24-26 – Big Atlas Weekend! Go atlasing in any of the six participating regions from 6 pm on Friday to 11:59 pm on Sunday.
- June 29 @ 6 pm EDT – Awards ceremony. Enjoy highlights from the weekend, share your stories in small groups with atlasers from all regions, and find out who won the individual and region champion awards (registration required; click this link to register).
All event details are posted on Facebook.
How to Participate
Go atlasing between 6:00 pm Friday, June 24 and 11:59 pm Sunday, June 26 and submit your checklist through the MD-DC Atlas portal in eBird.
If you are new to atlasing, check out our Atlasing Essentials and don’t forget to also attend the special training offered on June 23rd!
Challenges and Prizes
The Big Atlas Weekend will have prize opportunities for atlasers of all skill levels, ranging from first-timers to veterans. One prize winner will be randomly selected in each of the following categories to win a Cornell Lab of Ornithology Bird Academy course of their choosing. Each Atlas will also select an MVA–most valuable atlaser! Here are the challenge categories:
- Complete Atlas checklist in a block that you have not atlased before
- Learn about complete checklists.
- Coded species that were not coded in that block before the Big Atlas Weekend
- Learn about breeding codes.
- Complete Atlas checklist with at least one coded species
- Learn about breeding statuses.
- Complete Atlas checklist with nocturnal effort
- Learn about atlasing at night. A nocturnal checklist is considered to be a checklist that begins between 20 minutes after sunset and 40 minutes before sunrise.
- Complete Atlas checklist with at least one coded priority species
- Learn about priority species.
- Complete Atlas checklist in an incomplete block
Inter-atlas Competition
Just to make this event even more exciting, the Atlas team has set up a friendly competition between the six participating projects—Newfoundland, Ontario, New York, Maine, Maryland and DC, and North Carolina. The winning project will receive the Big Atlas Weekend trophy and have their state or province engraved on the side. Maine took it home last year; who will get it this year??
The winning region will be selected based on their rank in each of three inter-atlas challenges, standardized across regions. The region with the highest cumulative rank will become the overall winning region of the Big Atlas Weekend–and recipient of the trophy!
- Nocturnal checklists
- Number of checklists with a start time between 20 minutes after sunset and 40 minutes before sunrise submitted during the event in each region.
- Breeding codes
- Total number of breeding codes submitted during the event in each region.
- New-to-user blocks
- Percentage of atlasers in each region who submit an atlasing checklist during the event in a block that they have not personally atlased in before.
Swag
Get your swag on at TeePublic!
Who doesn’t love a bit of swag?! We’ve designed a logo for this year’s event that features the birds on each of the participating project’s logo. Order a t-shirt and other items from TeePublic. Proceeds go towards next year’s event.