THE PELICAN--October Big Day Celebration 2021

By Parker Flickinger

We are all proud of how our October Big Day 2021 celebration turned out. We hosted 4 different field trips around the Northern Nevada community. Our goal this year was to encourage more group participation in birding and break last October Big Day record of 50 species observed. We were able to break our birding record, with 54 species observed on our walks. Some highlight species included were Cedar Waxwings, a Red-shouldered Hawk, an Eared Grebe and an American White Pelican.

Not only did we break our birding record, we also broke our record of participation with over 35 people joining our walks as participants! People of all ages joined us, to get a look at some of the many birds passing through our community. One of our proudest accomplishments was a collaboration with the local chapter of National Federation of the Blind (NFB). Clients from NFB, joined us at Oxbow Nature Study Area, for an auditory-based bird walk. We brought out our museum skin mounts for the visually impaired guests to touch and experience some of the many birds we observe on our walks. We also explained the bird calls to everyone who attended, and by the end everyone could distinguish between the calls of a Steller's Jay and California Scrub Jay. We hope to collaborate with NFB for future events.

Of course, our Big Day celebration was not just limited to leading field trips. We also hosted two educational birding webinars. These included a Beginning Bird ID webinar with Jennie Jones Scherbinski, and an Introduction to eBird webinar with Parker Flickinger and Ben Sonnenberg. These webinars were positively received by attendees, as evidenced by the questions attendees asked. We recorded these webinars and uploaded them to our YouTube channel for everyone to watch. To see our playlist of Big Day 2021 YouTube videos click on the button below.
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October Big Day on YouTube

As you know, Big Day is an international birding "holiday". Ebird kept track of all the sightings birdwatchers (like you) submitted on their website. Feel free to visit the Big Day website below to see the accomplishments of the global birding community!

October Big Day Global Results

Special Thanks to the following individuals and organizations who made this event possible:

• Ben Sonnenberg
• Birdability
• Kara Blum
• Rose Barber-Callicrate
  
• Mark Tadder with Northern Nevada NFB
• Nevada Department of Wildlife
• Officers Craig and Burrows from Reno Police Department
• Truckee Meadows Parks Foundation