The Big Sit! is coming this weekend and Sitting on our Assateague is back for the 10th straight year!  If you are unfamiliar with the Big Sit! visit the official website at Birdwatcher's Digest:

http://www.birdwatchersdigest.com/bwdsite/connect/bigsit/index.php

The rules are simple: See and/or hear as many birds as you can within a 17 foot diameter circle on Sunday 10/9/11.

We place our Big Sit circle at tip of Bayside Point on Assateague Island, generally centered on the little boardwalk between the parking lot and the information kiosk next to the canoe rental.  This location has it's advantages and disadvantages.  Often migrants will stop at the last couple trees before making the jump to South Point and we have a good view of the water.  However, some years (particular ones with poor migration), most of the birds are on the campground side of the parking lot.  

If you've ever been to Bayside in fall migration, you'll know that most of birds are flybys.  Not many things hang out too long at Bayside Point (this year's Townsend's Warbler excluded!).  This is a great time to hone your in-flight identification skills and maybe get some pointers from some of the people who bird this location regularly.   

Over 9 years, we've had 158 species from the circle including Eurasian Collared-Dove, Yellow-headed Blackbird, Clay-colored Sparrow, and 18 species of warblers.  Our totals have ranged from 66 to 103 in 2003, when we had the highest total in the US.  Also, when the birding gets slow, you can wander around Assateague and find a White-faced Ibis, like Hans Holbrook did in 2009.  

So if you want to join us, just come on down and drive to the point, can't miss us.  I will definitely be there by 6am, but weather depending I could be out as early as 3am.  If you are interested in night birding, send me an email and I can let you know when/if I'm headed out early.  Also, we usually quit sometime between 11am and 1pm so there is plenty of time bird the area after the sit.

Good luck to all the other Big Sit teams around the state!

Matt Hafner
Forest Hill, MD

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