Oh What a Beautiful Morning...
Reflections on October Big Day 2023
Anguilla couldn’t be farther from Oklahoma, but the words to this song from Rogers and Hamerstein’s musical sums up my experience during this year’s October Global Big Day.
I was lucky to be joined again by my partner in crime - Biz Bell of Wildlife Management International in New Zealand. Setting out before sunrise, we headed directly to Cove Bay to search for our little Piping Plover visitor. While we were disappointed by its absence, the beauty of the morning overcame all.
The calm seas, punctuated by a spectacular sunrise and a silhouetted Belted-kingfisher, set the tone for the day.
Big Days have always been about recording species. It has become a competition by design as countries are ranked by number of species identified. All of that seemed to go out the window on this day. We quickly pivoted to a day of great friends enjoying birding in Anguilla.
While I honestly couldn’t tell you at noon how many species we recorded, the trends were readily apparent.
American Kestrels, Great Egrets, and Green Herons appeared frequently throughout the day.
The presence of many juvenile birds signals a successful nesting season for Green Herons.
It was great to see so many Magnificent Frigatebirds as they embark on their annual breeding season.
While looking for Tropicbirds in Little Bay, we found turtles enjoying a calm morning.
Our last stop at West End Pond IBA produced several species of shorebirds.
When we finished the count, we recorded 59 species of birds. Two species (Eurasian Collared Dove and House Sparrow) were considered “exotic” species and not included in the total by eBird.
eBird explains their status here:
“Naturalized: Exotic population is self-sustaining, breeding in the wild, persisting for many years, and not maintained through ongoing releases (including vagrants from Naturalized populations). These count in official eBird totals and, where applicable, have been accepted by regional bird records committee(s).”
This is a new record for Nature Explorers Anguilla Global Big Day and put Anguilla in eighth place in the West Indies.
Our counts were also included in our partner organizations: Wader Quest and Global Birding.
The moral of this story is to enjoy the beauty of Anguilla’s birds and forget the numbers. It will all work out.
Up Next: Stay tuned as Nature Explorers Anguilla Wild Side News participates in the Wader Conservation World Watch 2023 - November 4th and 5th!
What wonderful photos ... it must have been an amazing day! Thank you for sharing... it sure lightens the heart and continues to remind us of nature’s beauty and abundance.