College Basketball has March Madness. Golf has The Master’s, but for birders it’s spring migration and hopes of a Big Day. Since 2004 I have participated in Birdathon – an event where thousands of birders of all ages and experience levels volunteer to count as many bird species as they can find to raise funds and have a friendly competition to support their local Audubon chapter.
Many of you know that I am the only staff for the Audubon Society of Northern Virginia (ASNV) and wear lots hats; from administrator to social media manager to event planner and more. ASNV is the largest independent chapter in North America, serving nearly 5,000 members. It is truly a grassroots organization. I believe in and am committed to the Audubon mission of protecting birds, other wildlife, and their habitats.
My team, Two Drakes, a Hen and a Chick are very competitive. We like to win! This year there were many challenges… The unusually mild winter, extreme temperature fluctuations and late southerly wind patterns fueled a protracted migration. We were also without one of our all stars, Larry Cartwright. We knew that we had to march on and do the best that we could…
Katherine Wychulis, Greg Fleming, Flat Larry, Laura McDonald
So we did. For 17 hours straight my teammates and I birded in and around Northern Virginia. We worked hard from pre-dawn to sunset and tallied 120 species of birds. During that time we shared stories, laughed and made memories that will last a lifetime – Flat Larry was quite a hit with the local birding crowd.
Katherine Wychulis, Flat Larry, Kurt Gaskill
ASNV relies on events like this to support sponsoring a teacher to Hog Island, citizen science and habitat conservation in the Lower Potomac River Important Bird Area (LPR-IBA), and support our efforts to promote native plants that support bird populations.
Your donation will ensure the future ability of our organization to advance conservation, education, and advocacy programs, provide positive experiences with the natural world and empower individual involvement in conservation and restoration of natural ecosystems.
Donations from our team in 2015 went towards the purchase of a bench to honor a true living conservation legend, Jim Waggener. (We even received coverage from a local newspaper!) This fall we will use the bench as an anchor for a Big Sit. I am requesting that my donation be applied to support this event as well as other worthy projects in the LPR-IBA.
Thank you in advance for your support! I couldn’t agree more with Anthropologist, Margaret Mead, “Never underestimate the power of a small group of committed people to change the world. In fact, it is the only thing that ever has.”
To make a donation, please click here and choose Two Drakes, a Hen and a Chick.
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