Midway through Birdathon madness

By Ilana DeBare

If this blog has been a little quiet for the past couple of weeks, it’s because we’ve been spending a lot of time on the (annoying, frustrating, necessary) administrative details of our annual Birdathon, which runs throughout the month of April.

But here’s the payoff for all that administrative scutwork — time in the field for Birdathon participants!

Jerry Ting and Davor Desancic recently completed a 13-hour self-guided Birdathon photo expedition. They started at 6:40 a.m. and ended at 7:40 p.m., hit eleven East Bay birding hotspots, and along the way found 135 species.

That’s great, but in fact a number of our Birdathon trips spot over 100 species. What’s amazing is that Jerry and Davor also managed to photograph 120 of them!

Here are a few of  Jerry’s photos. You can see the rest of them in Jerry’s Flickr Birdathon gallery and on Davor’s Birdathon Flickr gallery.

Yellow-rumped (Audubon's) Warbler at Fremont Central Park / Photo by Jerry Ting
Common Gallinule at Coyote Hills in Fremont / Photo by Jerry Ting
Tree Swallow at Fremont Central Park / Photo by Jerry Ting
Cedar Waxwings at Martin Luther King Shoreline Park, Oakland / Photo by Jerry Ting

Jerry’s Birdathon photos remind me of how fortunate we are to live in this incredible area, where we can see such a wealth and diversity of birds in a single day.

Of course, the other benefit of Birdathon — besides the birding fun — is the fundraising for Golden Gate Bird Alliance.

So far, individual Birdathon participants have raised or donated over $11,000! We’ve raised another $10,000 in corporate sponsorships. And we’re just halfway through the month — donations continue to roll in.

As many of our members know, this has been a challenging year financially for GGBA. So the support of our members and friends through Birdathon is more welcome and more appreciated than ever.

Want to join the fun? There are two more weekends of trips, most of which still have spaces available. Click here for the calendar of Birdathon trips.

Or do what Jerry and Davor did — create your own self-guided Birdathon expedition, and commemorate it with a donation or fundraising for GGBA.

Even if you can’t join one of the trips, please join us for the Birdathon Awards Dinner on Sunday afternoon May 19th in Oakland. Details and online registration for the dinner are available on our web site by clicking here.

As for me? I’m planning to liberate myself from Birdathon software trouble-shooting long enough to join Glen Tepke’s six-hour Oakland trip next weekend. Come join us! Or… sponsor us on my fundraising page.