Some of my friends and I are planning a King County Big Day in very late
April. It will be a significantly different kind of birding than I usually
do. Every Wednesday I spend 5 or more hours on a two-mile loop at Marymoor
Park. On our Big Day, we will be covering about 175 miles driving, with
about 20 stops along the way, over about 15 hours.

*I* will not call what we're doing "speed birding". We will bird 3 hours at
one stop, 1 hour at each of two others, and quite a few more stops for 30-45
minutes. Certainly we will not do anything that is contrary to the ABA code
of ethics. We will NOT be speeding down gravel roads, and DEFINITELY won't
be throwing stones or trashing wetlands.

We will, however, be making some quick stops - in some cases, we'll be
looking for only a single species (i.e. stopping at the Tinkham Rd. exit off
I-90 to look for American Dipper). Some stops may be skipped because we'll
have already seen everything we expect we could see there. We WILL have
scouted out stops in advance to have an idea of what might be there and what
might not be there. Hearing a species IS good enough, and at some stop we
might conceivably hear a target bird and leave without even looking to see
what else is around.

So why am I doing a county Big Day? What is the attraction for someone who
is usually dawdling through Marymoor?

Well, it's a fun kind of challenge, and it's a good learning experience.
We're learning a lot about what birds *should* be able to be found at the
April/May transition, what birds *might* be found then, and *where* the
birds might be at that time. We're having to try to figure out how this
year's weather conditions will affect the bird distributions. We're having
to find new (to me) locations to bird. I'm already learning a lot about the
geographical relationships between different parts of the county (i.e.
driving along a road from one place I know towards locations unknown, when I
suddenly realize - "Oh - I know where I am now. I didn't know it was so
close"). It's intellectually challenging much the same way a crossword
puzzle is challenging. We are also mounting a mock challenge to another
group doing a KC Big Day the following day. We're planning on having a lot
of fun, and I'm sure they are too.

The idea of a Big Day isn't inherently evil. On ours, we won't be driving
that many total miles - certainly a trip to Ocean Shores or Vantage covers
more ground by car. We will be doing some quick stops, but there's no harm
in stopping only to see a dipper. True, we won't be taking the time to
enjoy a whole lot of Quality Views of birds along the way, we won't linger
to record interesting bird behavior to add to the scientific knowledge of
birds, and we won't see all there is to see at *any* of our stops.

But as an occasional activity, and as long as one doesn't get so caught up
in the game aspect of a Big Day that one lose's sight of the fact that it
involves intruding upon other creatures going about their daily lives, I
don't think its anything to get up in arms about.

== Michael Hobbs
== Kirkland, WA
== http://www.scn.org/fomp/birding.htm
== birdmarymoor at verizon.net