Saturday, June 27, 2015

WHY GREEN BIRDING?

Green birding has developed as a way to bird that does not have a negative impact on the environment. Even when talk of global climate change was fairly new to most of us, some birders realized that the extreme driving and flying that a few birders undertake for big years and big lists, is detrimental to the environment. If a person really cares about birds, it seems inconsistent to be driving and flying thousands of miles to pursue birds (with the extreme carbon footprint of such efforts). The BIGBY movement that developed in Quebec was an effort to bird in a more environmentally responsible way and to encourage birding in one's local patch. This also fosters the study all of nature in the birder's local area, not just birds. It leads to a deeper appreciation of your local area and, hopefully, even preservation and restoration efforts there. In this way, green birding often leads to green naturalism and nature activism.

There are birding advantages to green birding. On a bike or on foot, birders can see and hear birds all the time, not just at stops or for fleeting moments through the windows of a speeding car. Green birders are able to stop at any time to see and study birds found en route, not just at pullouts. Consequently, more species are seen in less distance and green birding big day species totals are approaching the totals once only recorded on big days in cars, even though the distance covered in a day by bike is far less. 

Green Birding also still satisfies the competitive urge possessed by some birders. The sport of birding can be done responsibly. The Big Green Big Year,  "BIGBY," was soon followed by all sorts of variations on big green years for counties, states and countries. Birders started green big days, green big hours, county green lists, walking big days and big years. The Big Sit, which originated independently of this movement, was now seen also as a way to green bird. Birders could satisfy their urge to compete at various levels in a way that was not bad for the environment and which fostered a greater appreciation of birds and all nature in their local area. This has been further promoted by eBird, the online bird database developed by National Audubon and Cornell, with its local patch challenge. With eBird, birders are not only encouraged to bird locally, but to note nesting and seasonality of birds, important data for the study of birds and the effects of climate and habitat change.

Green birding has a physical challenge not present in motorized big days and big years. Top big days often involve over 100 miles of cycling over varied terrain, and big years can involve thousands of miles of pedalling. This additional challenge heightens the satisfaction of a successful big day or big year. It usually pushes those participants, who are able, to new levels of fitness. For those who are not physically able, there is the big foot hour and the Big Sit. A wheelchair category in the green birding records is certainly open for any of the green birding categories.

Last, there is a more spiritual side to green birding which becomes more evident on long bike rides. The birder on the road for a big day, and especially for multiple days, experiences the terrain, the weather, the sounds of the wind, birds, cars, and sees the effects of man on the terrain more intimately than those speeding by in a car. The birder starts to feel more like a slow bird moving from one location to another. The green birder is apart from the people speeding by and, like a bird, is also vulnerable to those cars and the weather. Days on the road aren't boring; the birder gets into into a groove after a few days: where the 60 to 100 miles (or more) on the bike feels routine. The bicycle birder achieves a different and satisfying mental state on the road. In the quest for birds the green birder becomes like a bird - totally in the moment.

15 comments:

  1. Hello from southernmost Illinois! There is nothing more wonderful than birding by bike. It makes me feel one with the birds! And my bike birding partners and I (a.k.a. the Cocoa-billed Cuckoos), as part of our biking big day(s), raise funds for habitat restoration and preservation in the Illinois Cache River Wetlands, a RAMSAR wetland of international importance. -Rhonda R.

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  2. Hi Rhonda. I agree totally. Your fund raising is wonderful too! Thanks for your comment. There is so much more to green birding than records. I'd love it if you'd write a piece for this blog, about what green birding means to you and how you organize the fund raising.

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  3. Jim,
    Thanks for all the thought you've put into this! I'm the list compiler for Illinois and I've struggled with how best to compare some of the green apples and oranges. I really like your system of G, * and **; I'm running that past the people on the Listers Corner Committee but I imagine we'll be adopting your system.
    Here are the links for our green categories as of the end of last year:
    http://www.illinoisbirds.org/listers_corner/2014/2014MiscellaneousLists.pdf
    and
    http://www.illinoisbirds.org/listers_corner/2014/2014BigDays.pdf
    You'll have to dig a bit for the green listings, but they're there.
    Joe

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  4. Thanks Joe! I'd love to hear any suggested changes or additions. Thanks for the links.

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  5. Thanks for your kind words. I'd love to hear what you have to say about green birding.

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  6. I have been birding on foot and by bike in Indiana the last two years, tallying 137 in 2015 and 143 so far in 2016, with the goal of hitting 150 in 2017. So far, this has all been confined to my home county of Allen. I would love to hear about more people who bird this way, and I would always be up for some friendly competition! http://gregandbirds.wordpress.com

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  7. Hi Jim, thanks for sharing all these wonderful examples of green birding activities. I'm currently writing a journal article on Green, meaningful and ethical birding, and would like to use some of the blog pictures (with credits, of course) to illustrate green birders achievements and activities. Please let me know if it is possible

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  8. Thanks Joe! I'd love to hear any suggested changes or additions. Thanks for the links.
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  9. Hi, thanks for compiling all of the Green Birding information! I thought I would add that Wisconsin has a Green Birding group and a friendly competition every year: https://wsobirds.org/bigby

    The record-holder so far is Ross Mueller with 243 species in 2016. I don't know if that's the overall record for an inland U.S. state, but perhaps it could be a placeholder until anyone else submits a record! (All of the Wisconsin BIGBY records will qualify as "G" by your useful ranking system.)

    Cheers,
    Emily

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  10. I don't know anything about this record, but for Inland County of the US Big Day, here's a note from Birding magazine, Oct 2026 (Milestones section):
    "On Monday, May 30, 2016, Mike Taylor of Logan, Utah,
    and Cullen Clark of Richmond, Utah, saw 130 bird species
    in Cache County, Utah, on a 26-mile walking county
    Big Day, a local record for a non-motorized
    Big Day. For perspective, the
    overall county Big Day record is 156
    species, but required more than 200
    miles of driving, walking, and biking
    to see the additional 26 species."

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  11. Frank Fogarty, Keith Bailey, Jay Riggio and I got 158 birds on a biking big day in Yolo County, CA, a completely inland route - see here for the recap:
    http://digest.sialia.com/?rm=message;id=1420700

    (We did get dropped off at the start, but it was <50 miles from our houses and we rode home, so we get an asterisk).

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