--=====================_828474349==_
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"


Dear Tweeters:

Here's the latest on the most exciting birding event in the Pacific
Northwest--the Okanagan Big Day Challenge! If you'd like more information
or pledge sheets, or if the attached text file is garbled, please write or
call me.

Dick Cannings
cannings at awinc.com
(604) 496-4019 phone/fax


--=====================_828474349==_
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="OKBDCLET.TXT"

THE 1996 OKANAGAN BIG DAY CHALLENGE

Welcome to the eleventh annual Okanagan Big Day Challenge, held each year on the Victoria Day weekend (usually around May 20th, for those south of the border). This year, for the seventh time, it is being organized as a birdathon with all proceeds going to the Nature Trust of British Columbia, where it will be used to help purchase nature reserve land in the Okanagan.

OBJECT

The object of a Big Day is to see or hear as many bird species as possible on one day, usually in a given area. This year's Big Day takes place on Sunday, May 19, from midnight to midnight. The Little Big Day competition involves teams finishing at noon.

RULES

1. Teams must have a name. If you don't have a team name before you start, you must think one up during the day. Usually after 20 hours of straight birding, something appropriate will surface.

2. Teams must consist of two to six (usually three or four) people travelling in one vehicle.

3. Teams must begin and end the day within the Okanagan watershed in Canada, and/or remain within Okanogan County, Washington.

4. No tape recorders are allowed to attract birds (they are recommended for documentaion of a calling or singing rarity), although the participants may imitate bird calls by whistles, grunts, hoots, or whatever.

5. No airplanes are allowed.

6. A participant may join or leave a team part way through the day, as long as he or she is part of the team for at least half of the time that team spends in the field. E.g. a person who is not too keen on getting up at 0200 may join his/her team at dawn without that team having to delete species not seen by that person. A corollary of this is that the ABA's 95% rule does not apply. A person in the field for less than half of the time must act as a "nonparticipating companion" as defined and regulated in the ABA rules.

7. All species seen or heard during the day must be checked off a checklist and the checklist submitted to the organizers before or during the brunch on Monday. Any species indicated as casual, accidental or nonexistent in spring or summer on the Okanagan checklist must be documented with a full field description, photograph, or tape recording, and this evidence must be submitted to and accepted by the organizers.

KEEPING SCORE

THE FLAMMULATED OWL AWARD

This award is presented to the team which records the most species during the day. If two teams are tied, the winner is the one which saw its last species earliest.

THE KOOTENAY KUP

This award, donated by Gary Davidson, is presented to the team, usually Gary Davidson's, which records the second highest species total of the day.


THE LITTLE BIG DAY AWARD

To be eligible for the Little Big Day award, teams must finish birding (or collapse or whatever) before noon. Those teams which continue birding into the afternoon are not eligible for this award, no matter how good their species total was at high noon.

THE OKA-NOGGIN

This cherished mug, donated by Gerry Bennett of the now-defunct Birdfinding in Canada, will be given to the birder who first sights the "Bird of the Day". This decision will be made by public show of hands at the Monday brunch by all participants present.

THE SOUR GRAPES AWARD

A large cluster of green steel grapes, donated by Doug Kragh and the now-defunct Freightliner shop in Burnaby (donating awards to this event is clearly not good luck), is slung like an albatross around the neck of the leader of the team which misses the commonest bird species during the challenge, another decision made by public show of hands.

It is clear that to properly assign some of these awards, it would be very helpful if teams kept a running list during the day, recording the time at which each species was seen. A team wishing to submit its Big Day Count to the American Birding Association must, of course, abide fully by ABA rules rather than the more relaxed ones outlined above. Blake Maybank, the Big Day editor for the ABA, will be attending the OKBDC again this year and promises to bring a new award, but has declined to say what it will be awarded for.

THE MONDAY BRUNCH

The Monday brunch will take place at 9:30 a.m. at the home of Dick Cannings and Margaret Holm at 1330 East Debeck Road in Naramata. To get there, follow the signs for Naramata northeast from the intersection of Main and Westminster in Penticton (km 0). The route involves many curves and intersections for the first half, but always follow the arrows on checkerboard signs or any signs for Naramata. About 12.6 kilometres from Main Street you meet Arawana Road on the right; there is a bunch of green mailboxes at the bottom of it (if you pass the Naramata Fire Hall you've gone too far). Turn right and go up the hill past two side streets on the left; the third one on the left is Debeck. Turn here and go a hundred metres or so, cross the creek (very small, culvert), then turn left again to stay on Debeck. Our house is the first one on the left after this turn. Park on the roadside. For further information, call Dick or Marg at 496-4019. It will be a pot-luck brunch, so bring som
e fruit, cereal, rolls, brea

There will be an optional pre-Big Day meeting at the Cannings' place in Naramata on Saturday evening (7 to 9 or so).

Good luck and good birding!

Dick Cannings, organizer
496-4019 (phone/fax)
cannings at awinc.com

--=====================_828474349==_--