SOMETIMES WHEN you see a beautiful bird or manage to take a photo of a quick moving winged critter, you really want to tell somebody all about it!
I felt that way the other day when I saw this delicately pale-colored gadwall fly in with a flock to the little lake next to the parking lot at Pleasure House Point.
Now, I can report the sighting to the Virginia Beach Audubon Society's new endeavor, their first Big Year Contest. The society is going to keep a record of your sightings throughout the year to learn how many species of birds and where they are being sighted within a 100-mile radius of Virginia Beach.
You may have seen or heard about the movie a couple of years ago called "The Big Year," based on a book of the same name. "The Big Year" is about the extreme effort some birders put into identifying as many species as possible across the nation within a year.
In the case of the Audubon Society's big year contest, they don't want you to travel to the wild west to look for a bird, only about as far west as Richmond, or north as Chincoteague or south to Hatteras, N.C. And you don't have to travel at all if you don't want to.
The contest runs for 11 months, Jan. 1 to Dec. 1, and is open to everybody, Audubon members or not. There are three categories of sightings - total species seen for the year, total species seen in the city of Virginia Beach and total species seen in the least amount of trips.
Send email listings with your name, the species you saw, the date and location to: bigyear@vbaudubon.org. Be specific with location, such as Pleasure House Point or First Landing State Park.
Audubon President Bob Zabot will keep track of all sightings and information. A special area on the www.VBaudubon.org website will keep track of submissions and leaders.
Zabot suggested that a great place to start would be on one of the field trips sponsored by the Virginia Beach Winter Wildlife Festival next weekend. The Great Backyard Bird Count in February would be a good place to compile a number of species, too.
Though the fun may be in the contest, all the information, large or small, will help Virginia Beach birders know more about where to go to look for what and in what season.
"With this data we should also be able to see if there are any other hot spots in the city that produce great bird sightings other than the usual," Zabot said.
The top birders in each category will be announced at the Virginia Beach Audubon Society 2014 Christmas dinner.
Virginia Beach Audubon Society meetings are open to the public, though membership requires only the purchase of a subscription to the National Audubon Society's "Audubon" magazine.
Meetings are at 7 p.m. every second Monday of the month, except summer months, at Eastern Shore Chapel on Laskin Road. Refreshments, a speaker and an update on what's going on the birding world are all part of the meeting.
From the Chesapeake Bay to the Dismal Swamp from the Atlantic Ocean to the Elizabeth River, and all the bays and rivers in between, a gold mine of critters are out there to be seen.
See what you can find and let Audubon know.
P.S. If you like the idea of a helpful crutch in your pocket when out in the field, try Merlin Bird ID, an easy-as-pie free bird ID app for your phone from Cornell Lab of Ornithology. See my blog for more: http://hamptonroads.com/2014/01/whats-bird-try-new-app.
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS
Jim Yanello sent photos of HK, the eagle at Honey Bee Golf Club featured in last week's column, as the bird walked around on river ice at Honey Bee Golf Club in the big freeze. See Reese Lukei's blog for news about another banded eagle, KS, a 3-year-old, also hanging out at Honey Bee: http://eaglenest.blogs.wm.edu.
Vivian Slezak photographed an egret with a yellow wing tag on the lake at South Shore Estates, but she is unable to read the tag numbers.
Jeanie Drescher at the Owls Creek boat ramp photographed a bald eagle just after catching a fish on the creek that is on my blog, and so is Whitney Frazier's photo of a roll cloud that appeared off the oceanfront as the frigid cold front was moving into the beach the other week. Also see Pam Monahan's photo of a female and juvenile yellow-bellied sapsucker that have been hanging around in her West Neck yard this winter.
Mary Catherine Miguez sent photos of a young white ibis still in its brown and white coloration at Mackay Island National Wildlife Refuge.
Ann Murray sent a photo of a few dozen great egrets roosting in a tree at Carolanne Farm Park that she said at first looked like "a tree decorated with milk cartons."
Claude Bell reports a ruby-throated hummingbird has arrived at his feeder in Linkhorn Park, as one has every winter for the past several years. A little hummer is still visiting my feeder at the North End too.
Stuart McCausland was walking on the narrow Bay Trail at Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge when he surprised three deer coming down the trail toward him. See his photo and Bill Niven's photo of tundra swans feeding, bottoms up, on the Knotts Island Causeway in Thursday Beacon's Close Encounters.
Connie Fulton sent a photo of handsome pelican floating on Crystal Lake, where it had probably headed to escape the winter storm last week.
Kathy Loomis in Kings Grant said a Baltimore oriole appeared at her feeder a couple of days after she read my column on the colorful birds. And Stacey Klemenc in South Shore Estates has had both a female and a pair in her yard. Marty Sawyer in Sylvan Lake was excited to have had her very first male oriole at her feeder recently. And Holly White on Cedar Road in Chesapeake has had a male visiting her feeder.
David Hunt has had a painted bunting visiting his yard in Birdneck Lake for more than a week now.
Barbara Schaefer on Broad Bay Island sent a photo of a great horned owl sitting by the pool in her yard, taken by her son Michael Schaefer Friedman.
Pat Dean in Larkspur photographed a red-bellied woodpecker getting sustenance from her suet wreath on the coldest day of the year.
Dawn Davenport sent photos from Mount Trashmore's busy lake of pied bill grebes, coots, cormorants and more.
Woody Stephens in Thalia has been photographing green-winged teal, wood ducks, buffleheads, ruddy ducks, eagles, egrets and more.
Roma Robertson photographed and released a blue bird, trapped on her screened porch in Brigadoon Woods. "Needless to say, I'm in the process of building and installing a bluebird box!"