GCBC 2023 Big Year
This year, the club is holding a very informal Big Year event. The effort is a collective one, rather than a competition for an individual high species count, to see how many bird species we as a club can observe throughout the year, just for fun. So come out on some outings and send invitations to the club when you plan to head out, and help build our numbers up.
Rules
You knew there were going to be rules. These are the ones we made up.
- Birds must be identified between January 1, 2023 and December 31, 2023.
- Outings must be open to all GCBC members. These can be scheduled outings posted on the website, or impromptu outings posted as late as the day before, as long as they are open to club members to participate.
- Birds recorded must be wild and unrestrained. Oh, and alive. No pets, no feral stuff, no road kill. Unless you hit it.
- Location is not restricted to SC, the Upstate, or any other region. If the club has an outing to Kenya (spoiler alert: we're probably not), all birds identified count.
- Birds must have been ethically found. No trespassing, harassing birds, kidnapping better birders, etc.
- Birds can be identified by sight or sound. For a bird to count, a majority of the birders who observed it must agree on its identification. Ties will be resolved by best-of-three rock-paper-scissors matches.
- Score will be kept with the GCBC eBird account. The easiest way to add to the list will be to share an eBird checklist to that account. If you don't use eBird, just send a list to David Palmer, Denise DuPon, Simon Harvey, or Jeff Click, and we'll see that it gets added.
- Click here for instructions on sharing eBird lists. To find the GCBC, select the user name Greenville County Bird Club.
Periodic updates of our success (or lack thereof) will be shared with the club, and we’ll of course share the total after the end of the year. If this turns out to be a fun activity, we'll consider doing it again next year.