June 28 – 30, 2024
Get ready for the Big Atlas Weekend taking place the last weekend in June! This friendly competition is a fun way for birders to come together and document breeding birds in a concerted effort right at the peak of breeding season. It’s a great opportunity to confirm breeding and fill in gaps in Atlas data.
This year’s event is being coordinated across several Atlases: Maryland/DC, Newfoundland, New York, North Carolina, Ontario, Pennsylvania, and Puerto Rico!
How to Participate
All you have to do is go atlasing between 6:00pm Friday, June 28 and 11:59pm Sunday, June 30, and submit your checklists through the Pennsylvania Bird Atlas portal in eBird. Be sure to report codes for the breeding behaviors you observe!
Schedule
June 26: Virtual kickoff event (tentative 6pm start time)
June 28-30: Competition
July 3: Virtual Awards Ceremony – see challenges below! (tentative 6pm start time)
Challenges
Each project will randomly select an atlaser from each of the categories below. Eligible checklists must be complete and submitted to the appropriate atlas portal between 6 PM June 28 and midnight June 30.
- Nocturnal checklists submitted between 20 minutes after sunset and 40 minutes before sunrise
- Newly coded or upgraded species in a block
- Checklists with breeding codes from an incomplete block
Inter-Atlas Competition
To make this event even more exciting, the seven participating Atlas projects are all engaging in a (mostly!) friendly competition. The winning project will receive the Big Atlas Weekend trophy. Puerto Rico won last year — Who will take the trophy home in 2024??
The winning region will be selected using their standardized rank in the three data challenges (numbers of nocturnal checklists, newly coded or upgraded species, and checklists from incomplete blocks). The region with the highest cumulative rank will become the overall winning region of the Big Atlas Weekend—and recipient of the trophy!
Let’s all get out atlasing between June 28 and June 30 so the PA Breeding Bird Atlas can claim the Big Atlas Weekend trophy!