On a moonlit night in a New Jersey swamp, four men stand silently, heads bowed and hands cupped behind their ears, as they strain to hear faint sounds in the surrounding acres of mud and vegetation.
Suddenly one urgently whispers: “Sora,” and the others turn in the direction of a squeal he heard but they did not. As they resume their listening poses, the sound recurs a few moments later, and the men nod to each other in approval.
It is enough. The brief noise from the depths of the appropriately named Great Swamp is the call of the Sora, a small marsh bird. The Sora follows the king rail, American bittern, gray-cheeked thrush, Swainson’s thrush and veery on the four-man team’s list of species seen or heard in this year’s World Series of Birding.
It’s a grueling 24-hour event that began in 1984, and many birders around the world see it as the top challenge in competitive birding.
These four men, who call themselves the 4 Loons, are among almost 1,000 contestants who competed to find the most bird species in New Jersey — acclaimed by birders as one of the most productive birding states in the nation — from midnight to midnight last Saturday.
In the process, the competitors raise thousands of dollars for conservation from pledges they gather.
Aming for 150 species
The 4 Loons, now in their ninth year of competition, consider themselves, despite skills that most people would find amazing, in the middle rank of competitive birding.
They finished 14th in the series last year with 174 species. This year, they hoped for 180 but ended up with only 150 after their van broke down in the early hours of the event and they had an agonizing five-hour wait for a replacement vehicle.
Team members Bill Reaume, 37, an elementary school counselor; Mike Lyman, 31, a biologist; Scott Fraser, 37, co-owner of a software company; and Art McMorris, 61, a former neuroscientist, are like most birders passionate and committed to “getting” the most number of birds.
But their name signals that they recognize the eccentricity of the event and know that many people, including some birders, may not understand why they are willing to stay up all night and drive hundreds of miles for visual or aural glimpses of distant birds.
“Most people think we’re mad,” said Reaume.
Glory goes to Sapsuckers
The winning team in this year’s event — organized by the New Jersey Audubon Society — was the five-person Sapsuckers, sponsored by the prestigious Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithology, which recorded 229 species, seven more than the winning total in 2005. Competition is run on the honor system.
Success in the World Series of Birding requires far more than showing up at a marsh or a wood with a pair of binoculars and hoping for the best.
Top teams spend a week or more “scouting” the state’s best bird areas so they can be reasonably confident of finding certain species in their high-speed, 24-hour chase through the state. That way, they hope to spend just a few minutes at a particular site before moving on to “get” the next bird.
Pre-event intelligence is freely shared among the teams, although they are fiercely competitive on the day of the event.
The goal is to increase the number of birds that all competitors can see and hence to maximize the amount of per-bird sponsorship money raised for conservation organizations.
The 4 Loons were raising money for a migratory bird study run by the Pennsylvania branch of The Nature Conservancy.
Military precision
To maximize their birding opportunities, teams plan their route with military precision.
The 4 Loons plotted exactly when to visit a certain spot where they hoped to hear the drumming of the ruffed grouse. Their scouting indicated the bird would sound at about 5:05 a.m. if the weather was clear but probably wait until 5:30 a.m. under cloudy skies.
Waiting for a bird is considered unacceptable when others could be “got” in a different location.
The object is identification, by eye or by ear. For those who hope to win, the briefest flutter or squeak is sufficient for a check on the list, provided it is conclusively agreed upon by all members of the team.
Asked what stops a team from cheating, the 4 Loons bristle at any suggestion that they would list a bird that had not been conclusively and honestly identified. Any birder who tried would quickly be found out by fellow birders who know which birds are likely to be in which locations.
“Birders are pretty quick to ascertain other birders’ skill level,” said McMorris. “You would never fool anybody, and you would never be able to show your face again.
“Besides, it’s no fun to cheat,” he said.