2019 Big Day recap

As the clock ticked towards midnight on April 28, 2019, here we were again in Jackson, Mississippi, waiting anxiously in the dark, about to start a mad race to find as many bird species as possible in a 24-hour day in our home state. This time, we were starting in Andy Bell’s backyard because he had staked out a Chipping Sparrow sitting there on a nest. The Chippy would be species #1, and a bird we would not see again that day. After a quick glimpse of the sparrow, we listened for a few minutes for songbird migrants flying over, and added Veery to our list. A good start!

As the planning had ramped up for our 5th annual Mississippi Big Day effort to raise funds for Delta Wind Birds, we had made some “Big” plans. Having finally broken the Mississippi Big Day record with a count of 179 in 2018, friends had asked whether we would keep it going in 2019. After all, it’s a fairly exhausting and time-consuming endeavor each year. But we never considered not doing it! Not only is it DWB’s most important fundraiser of the year, but we also absolutely love doing the Big Day. It’s not the kind of birding any of us would want to do every day, but once or twice a year it’s a blast. The day itself is a caffeine- and chocolate-fueled marathon, birding our hearts out from midnight until we drop. But we also love that it forces us to really understand where and when to find Mississippi’s bird species–not just the famous native ones like Swallow-tailed Kites, but also the lowly recent invaders like Eurasian Collared-Dove. Plus, we think the Mississippi Big Day record can be pushed above 190 (indeed, the record in neighboring Alabama is more than 200!).

Big Day birding in the Pascagoula River bottoms. Photo by Scott Hoeksema.

The logistical challenge this year was escalated because we had decided to make a documentary film of the whole thing, to chronicle this weird facet of birding sub-culture, to explain what DWB does to help migratory shorebirds, and to highlight some of Mississippi’s most beautiful bird habitats. Luckily, a crack team led by Danny Klimetz (of DannyK Photography) had taken on the challenge. We thus had a crew of nine: The main birding team of Jason Hoeksema, J.R. Rigby, Hal Mitchell, and Andy Bell, plus a film/photo/support team of five: Danny Klimetz, Scott Hoeksema, Andy O’Bryan, Yavuz Ozeren, and Paul Gandy. We also owe a special thanks to our birding friends Brian Johnston, Holly Cox, Sheila Murphy, and Lillie Gibb, who provided essential scouting and logistical support.

After our quick start at Andy’s house, we quickly picked up Eastern Screech-Owl, Great Horned Owl, and a sleepless Yellow-billed Cuckoo at Andy’s nearby nursery. For the next hour and a half in Jackson, things went…OK. We missed Barn Owl at a stakeout spot, but heard Swainson’s Thrushes flying over. We found Eastern Phoebe at an expected spot on the way to Pipeline Rd, but the marshes at the reservoir were eerily quiet. In previous years, we had reliably been able to pick up 6-10 species of marsh birds there, several of which we would not easily find during the day on the coast: King Rail, Virginia Rail, Least Bittern, and Purple Gallinule were our key targets, but we also expected Sora, Common Gallinule, Barred Owl, and maybe to get lucky with American Bittern and Pied-billed Grebe like we did last year. This year, we found 3 species: King Rail, Barred Owl, and Common Gallinule. The King Rail was essential, and we would have some chance at all the others on the coast, but it was a bit dis-heartening. After a quick peek at a neighborhood Robin on a nest, we headed out of Jackson with 15 species–good, but not great.

At dawn in the Pascagoula River bottoms, the pace picked up quickly, and we found around 70 species in the next 90 minutes. We nabbed essential breeding species there, such as Yellow-throated Warbler, Swainson’s Warbler, Yellow-throated Vireo, Acadian Flycatcher, and Pileated Woodpecker. We also had some exciting and lucky moments here: a flyover Swallow-tailed Kite, a Wild Turkey bursting up from the roadside, and a Belted Kingfisher on the wire. We also picked up two migrant warbler species: Tennessee Warbler and Ovenbird, so we felt pretty good leaving the river bottoms (although we would never have guessed that those two would end up being the only non-breeding warbler species of the day, a key reason we ultimately didn’t reach our goal of breaking 180 species for the day).

Seaman Road Sewage Lagoons, our primary freshwater marsh spot, treated us pretty well, with more than 60 species including welcome sightings of Dickcissel, Bobolink, Sandhill Crane, and 11 species of shorebirds. We also scratched off two of our misses from the Pipeline Rd marshes in Jackson: Least Bittern and Virginia Rail. But we missed other hoped-for species, including Sora (!), Purple Gallinule, and Long-billed Dowitcher.

Seaman Road Sewage Lagoons

Black Scoter. Photo by Andy Bell.

We spent the rest of the morning in Pascagoula and elsewhere in Jackson county, picking up some cool additions we had never before seen on the Big Day (e.g., Western Kingbird, Roseate Spoonbill), avoiding a couple of potential misses (Pied-billed Grebe, American Coot, Bank Swallow), and racking up a lot more shorebird species. We then headed west for the beaches of Harrison County with a few more than 150 species on our list. Not bad for this time of day (around 2:00 p.m.), but we knew we needed to add a bunch of migrant songbirds, for which we’d be relying heavily on Ansley, our planned early-evening migrant trap spot. After some successful target birding along the way (e.g., Marbled Godwit & Lesser Black-backed Gull at Jones Park, Black Scoter at Pass Christian Harbor) we arrived at Ansley in the late afternoon, still hopeful of a big total.

When Ansley is good, it can be really exciting. Mostly brackish marsh and a few cottages, it harbors a big grove of live oaks that represent the first trees seen by many trans-Gulf migrants as they approach the Hancock County coast after flying all night. If the birds have been fighting headwinds and rain, they may stop in big numbers, and can be dripping from the trees. Today, unfortunately Ansley was as quiet (and devoid of migrant songbirds) as any of us had ever seen it in late April. We picked up a few key resident species, such as Seaside Sparrow, Bronzed Cowbird, and Northern Bobwhite, but the migrant songbirds were nowhere to be found. This year, the songbird migration was unusually late, and for various reasons we didn’t have the luxury of trying to wait until the perfect weather conditions. The last 24 hours had featured calm conditions and south winds, and most migrant songbirds had taken advantage to fly right over the Mississippi coast.

Exhausted and a bit slap-happy, and resigned that we would not be setting any new records this year, we headed for our final stop of the day: Bethel Bike Trails, in the longleaf pine woodlands away from the coast. We knew we would pick up 6-7 more species there (including Red-cockaded Woodpecker, Bachman’s Sparrow, Common Nighthawk, and Chuck-Will’s-Widow), and it is always a beautiful spot at which to end the day at sunset. The RCW showed up right away, and we savored some slow birding (for the first time that day) until sundown.

Our final total of 168 species was respectable, especially given the near-complete lack of songbird migrants. In the end, we had found only 11 warbler species (and only 2 non-breeders), when our previous low had been 15 species. It was also the first time in 6 tries (across five years) that we had missed Red-breasted Merganser, Sora, Purple Gallinule, Red-headed Woodpecker, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, and Yellow-rumped Warbler. Other big misses included Kentucky Warbler, Scarlet Tanager, Baltimore Oriole, and Red-shouldered Hawk. On the other hand, we managed 26 shorebird species (an all-time high for us), and added seven species that we had never before found on the Big Day. Every year we learn more about where to find all of Mississippi’s bird species in spring, but a lot of stars have to align for a record-breaking Big Day–this wasn’t one of those days, but it was fantastic in many ways. We’re already a bit more motivated for next year, as the team from Cornell came into Alabama a few days later (after the songbird migration had picked up) and posted a total of 191, only a few miles away!

Sunset at Bethel Bike Trails