The Big Atlas Weekend occurs the last full weekend in June and is a fun way for birders from across the state to document breeding birds and come together as an atlasing 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.
In 2022, this event was 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.
The Big Atlas Weekend T-shirt is now available (click here to purchase)! Proceeds go towards paying for our Kickoff speaker.
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. Watch the recording
- June 23 7 pm EDT – Atlas Training for New Atlasers. Learn more about atlasing in New York. We’ll present Atlas Basics and answer any questions you might have. Watch the recording
- June 24-26 – Big Atlas Weekend! Go atlasing in any of the six participating regions from 6 pm EDT on Friday to 11:59 pm EDT on Sunday. Join the Facebook Event Here
- June 24–26 — Block Party! Meacham Lake campground, Malone, Adirondacks. See events calendar for details.
- June 24–26 — Atlasing the Southern Tier. We are targeting the under-birded and under-atlased priority blocks of the Southern Tier. Learn more and sign up.
- June 25 — Atlas walk in Delaware County. Meet at the Uplands Center in Walton (2641 Dunk Hill Road) at 8:30am. See events calendar for details.
- 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 state champion awards. Watch the recording
Participation
360 atlasers went out atlasing between 6:00 pm EDT Friday, June 22 and 11:59 pm EDT Sunday, June 29. They spent a cumulative 1079 hours documenting 190 species in 553 blocks!
A slide from the June 29 Awards Night Zoom event. The slide shows the location of each checklist submitted to the NY Atlas and several summary statistics from the event (map created by Scott Anderson).
Challenges and Prizes
The Big Atlas Weekend has prize opportunities for atlasers of all skill levels, ranging from beginner to skilled atlasers. One prize winner was randomly selected in each of the following categories to win a Cornell Lab of Ornithology Bird Academy course of their choosing.
- Complete Atlas checklist in a block that you have not atlased before—Suan Yong
- Coded species that were not coded in that block before the Big Atlas Weekend—Doug Kibbe
- Complete Atlas checklist with at least one Confirmed species—James Kimball
- Complete Atlas checklist with nocturnal effort—Barb Thomascall
- Complete Atlas checklist with at least one coded rare breeding (aka priority) species—Patricia Martin
- Complete Atlas checklist in an incomplete block—Joel Strong
- Most valuable atlaser: wild card awarded by the Atlas Team to a standout atlaser—Jay McGowan
Interstate Competition
The Big Atlas Weekend trophy!
Just to make this event even more exciting, the Atlas team set up a friendly competition between the six participating projects—Newfoundland, Ontario, New York, Maine, Maryland and DC, and North Carolina. The winning project receives the Big Atlas Weekend trophy and will have their state or province engraved on the side. The competition was based on the following categories (standardized by the number of participating atlasers in each region).
- 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.
Maine took home the trophy two years in a row! Atlasers in Maine were focused on finishing blocks during the last year of their Atlas, and their dedication and hard work paid off.
Join us again next year June 23-25, 2023!
Atlasers got together to celebrate breeding birds for Big Atlas Weekend!