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The circle was in our backyard. "The Dark-eyed Chunkos", Ahlgrim family members, did the observing. Al, Al Jr. and Tari. A total of 19 hours was spent in the circle. Weather was horrific. High 59F. Low was 52F. Wind was gusty from the west up to 25 to 30 mph. There was intermittent rain the entire day. Wind swept the circle of birds all day and by noon I was afraid we wouldn't make ten species, but, during a break in the storm, around 4 pm, things calmed a bit a we ended with 18. We did have fun with it and will try again next year.

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CA, Santa Rosa : city (unincorporated area), eastern Sonoma County, approx 38d lattitude, 122d longitude, 1200ft altittude. Surrounded by Douglas Firs and other native conifers, bay trees, madrones, oaks. Lots of snags. At the top of steep slope, site level with tree trunks 30 feet up, 30 feet away. Dripping water, feeder on Cougar Lane, outside Santa Rosa, 1500' elevation

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Weather: low 50, high 70d, very windy daytime, very low humidity (in teens), Full moon, cloudless but smoggy day and night

Time at location: the entire time

Site: Point Reyes Bird Observatory

Lots and lots of Woodpeckers, Chickadees, Owls. The wind caused limited visibility, and ability to hear birds. (blizzards of Douglas Fir needles, roaring of trees). All the summer migrant breeders had left.
Golden Eagle was a BIG coup. No wind effect on this bird, unlike the Turkey Vultures all over the sky, wobbling like mad.

Interesting vocal interplay between the Pygmy and Screech Owls. One Screech Owl added 2 Pygmy Owl "whistles" to the end of it's tremulo, and Screech Owls responded to my Pygmy Owl vocalizations. I don't think the 2 species get along, from what I heard....

Dozens of Chickadee all over sunflower seeds. Steep slope afforded good views of Woodpeckers etc on the trees, moon shed light on Owl shapes. Totally different from previous site at my residence, and a surprising count, given the wind. Great support (and food) from my brother, his wife, and my niece Iris.

Our day started early, dozens of Chesntnut-backed Chickadees, got the Golden Eagle at dawn, then the Red-tail. Then the parade of woodpeckers started. Surrounded by conifers and other trees, on a steep slope, had the birds eye view of the trees.
Thanks to Tom's hard work with feeders, dripping bird bath, and Monica's feeding of myself, I was able to stay out all day to witness large numbers of actual birds. Mostly Tree conifer lovers. Due to the incredible acoustics of the site, I was able to hear birds all over the Valley below Tom's house

The best part was at night, when we got all 5 owls before midnight, including Pygmy Owls confronting Western Screech Owls within view. Three-year-old Iris was incredible with the owl calling.

This was a brand new site for me to Big Sit at!

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Weather: Cloudy and windy with frequent rain and drizzle, 52-58 degrees.

Time at location: One hour. Rain and drizzle for nine hours limited viewing time.

Miserable conditins for the third straight year.

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It's become tradition at our sit that Belle brings egg-and-olive sandwiches, and she didn't fail us this year!! Although this year's sit got us our highest species count ever, the afternoon was very dull, probably because of the weather. It was our most pleasant sit, weather-wise, sunny with a high of 75. I didn't know it was possible to get a sunburn in October in central New York.

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Weather: Drizzle and rain in the mourning, clearing in late afternoon

Time at Location: 6:15 AM to 5:30 PM

Golden Bird Prize: Hudson River Audubon Society of Westchester

Notes: We thought we were in for the same weather as last year with rain. The day started off cloudy but dry. We did get wet in the rain in late morning, but it became dry and started to clear up late in the day.

We thought we had a Barred Owl calling late in the morning, only to discover, and quite embarrassing, that I accidentally turned on my tape player in my bag when I put the camera away!

Our biggest highlight was a Vesper Sparrow feeding with a female Indigo Bunting along with a flock of feeding sparrows and Juncos on the edge of the lawn. The Vesper Sparrow was new to the Lenoir Nature Preserve!

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Weather: low 61 high 75. Cloudy until 11:00 AM. Cleared and very few clouds after 11AM. Almost no wind

Time: from 7:30 AM until 3:30 PM

Anecodotes: small big sit again. The yard (same big sit than last year) was relatively active until 10:30 and very quite after that. I only added one species after 12:00, I was not able to spend late afternnon there - I probably could have added a few species late afternoon (I had to take one of my kids back to college like last year). The yard was quieter than last year - 4 species short - 38 this year vs. 42 last year. Total for both years 51. No special species: Philadelphia Vireo was nice

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Preparations started the evening of October 11th, as we erected our scaffold at Quintana NBS. Miken Specialties again furnished the scaffold for us.

Tom Collins was the first to arrive the morning of the Big Sit. He was in the circle about 5:00AM. Jennifer Wilson arrived next, followed by myself, and my wife Olivia at six. We were followed closely by Phil Huxford, Denis James, and Ian Hartzler.

Tom was able to hear only two birds before we arrived. A Northern Mockingbird, and a Killdeer.

What started out as a slow day stayed that way. A northerly wind had come up during the night, moving quite a few of the birds out that had been in the area previously during a period of showers, and south winds.

Exceptionally high tides had displaced the area shorebirds, and it was just a little early for a number of migrants that either arrive to stay, or pass through our area. The folks that participated worked hard, and even with the dearth of migrants, managed to come up with 73 species.

A Clay-Colored Sparrow was a good find, along with Prairie Warbler, Broad-Winged Hawk, and Buff-Bellied Hummingbird. We had good numbers of Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds, American Redstarts, Indigo Buntings, and Wilson's Warblers.

We had a good time, and the birds were really a bonus.

Our stellar scaffold crew was headed by Tom Collins, along with, at one time or another, Jennifer Wilson, Ian Hartzler, Denis James, Phil Huxford, and Warren Pruess, who deserves special mention for batting a thousand in the bird department.

The intrepid ground crew was made up of Olivia Brower, Cecilia Reilly, Mike Gray, Ken West, Deanna Francis, and all the previously named scaffold crew.

We are looking forward to next years Big Sit, hopefully a week or so later in the season.

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Organization: Columbia Audubon Society

Notes: This year we returned to our old Big Sit spot in Granby Park on the Congaree River near downtown Columbia since we had obligations in town and it was not feasible to go out to the hawk watch site at Congaree Bluffs. The birding was rather slow. It seemed to be a bit early for winter birds (though we did have Eastern Phoebe and Cedar Waxwing). There were a few neotropical migrants around, including two warbler species, Scarlet Tanager, and Rose-breasted Grosbeak. The most impressive birds were the thrushes. There was a good dawn flight of Swainson's, Gray-sheeked and Wood Thrushes, and we heard all three of these species during the day as well. We had a total of 46 species, not bad for this location.

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Site:Mesa Day-use area of Bu-Shay Recreation Area, near Ukiah, CA. Overlooking Lake Mendocino with views of the surrounding ridges. Deep water, shallow water, shoreline, lawns, power lines, oak woodland, plantings of pines and other ornamentals.

Weather: Fine fall day, 49-82F, 25% light cirrus overcast, very little wind, moderate boat activity, lake level 733.4 feet.

The morning started out well with four owl species, and by the time the sun came over the ridge we had recorded a record number of 51 species. After that the birding became rather slow compared to our experience in previous years. By sunset we had clawed our way up to a new record low of 71 species. The record high for this site is 87 species, set just last year. Two species, Barn Owl and Northern Pygmy Owl, were new for the cummulative list, now 110 species. The level of Lake Mendocino was 733 feet, seven feet higher than on any other Sit date. After five years it is becoming clear that the number of species seen is inversely correlated with the lake level (r = -0.997, P < 1%). There were virtually no muddy edges along the east shore, and consequently there were fewer species of shorebirds, dabbling ducks, and diving ducks. With every big day there are big misses. This year we missed four species seen in every previous year: Green-winged Teal, Bufflehead, Hooded Merganser, and Mourning Dove.

Some highlights of the day were an adult Bald Eagle that was in sight perched or flying for most of the morning, thousands of late Violet-green Swallows milling over the entire lake and ridges for hours, and a singing Ruby-crowned Kinglet. Saturn's rings, Jupiter's moons, Orion's nebula, and shooting stars in the still air before dawn were pretty impressive too - as was watching two fishermen pull a nice Striped Bass out of a boil-up of bait fish.

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Weather: Overcast with some light rain. Wind calm to 5 MPH, Temp 65-75 degrees

Time at location: 8:00AM to 4:30PM

Houston Audubon Bolivar Flats fund for the prize money.

I learned that its not a good idea to share the circle with a mound of fire ants! 17ft is not a lot of space with them around!

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Weather: October 12, 2003: cloudy, some wind. 64 degrees F.

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Weather: warm, sunny--beautiful!

Time at Location: 5+ hours

Notes: Birding was awful. Very few birds seen at all. Lovely day for a picnic.

Our menu consisted of: Cold cuts - turkey, bologna, Condiments, Raisins, Grapes, London Broil marinated in Teriyaki Sauce and rubbed with Parson's meat rub (family recipe), Gala apples, Caramel dip, Lemonade, Iced Tea (Celestial Seasonings' Tangerine Orange Singer - YUM)

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Our Big Sit Circle is located around a picnic table that overlooks a marsh in Turtle River State Park. The Park is located 20 miles west of Grand Forks, North Dakota. The temperature at 7:15 a.m. when I started birding was 40 degrees fahrenheit.

During the day, the temperature did reach the low 60's. I stayed in the circle until 6:15 p.m. We conducted a Big Sit in this same location on May 31, 2003. Total number of birds seen that day was 55. Thank you for all your efforts, we had a great time. When I first mentioned this to my birding friends they thought I was kidding--they showed up though and had a fun day. Mid-October is likely not the best time for us in North Dakota. Again, Thank you for conducting this event. Tim Driscoll

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Rural backyard/farmyard in farm country with scattered woodlots, and suburbia encroaching.

Weather was excellent, clear blue sky! We are 5 miles north of Lake St. Clair, and 8 miles west of the Canadian border/St. Clair river.

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Species identified 54. 4 new species. Cumulative total for 8 years: 111

OCTOBER 12, 2003 GRANITE REEF ASTERISKS BIG SIT! REPORT

This was the year of the "Two Cynthias". Two-year veteran, Cynthia Donald, was joined by newcomer, Cynthia Grant. No way was devised by us to distinguish the two in discussions and conversations, other than by addressing them and referring to each of them by their full names.

I, Herb Fibel, the Asterisks leader, and Cynthia Grant, arrived at the Granite Reef Recreation Area site in the Tonto National Forest, just northeast of Mesa, Arizona, at 4:50 a.m. Because of criminal activities in the area at night, Forest Service officials have put a locked gate across the entrance road, which is opened at sunrise and closed at sunset. Knowing that we anticipated arriving well before sunrise, we made arrangements ahead of time with Forest Service official, Pete Levy. Pete promised that for this occasion they would put a combination lock on the gate and would give me the combination ahead of time, and did so. He also saw to it at our request that the huge old mesquite, under which our Sit! site has been located for eight years now, was trimmed sufficiently so that we had a panoramic, and virtually unobscured, 180 degree view, of the Granite Reef Reservoir. We had no need to struggle with the combination lock, however, because the Forest Service gatekeeper pulled up right behind us when we arrived, and unlocked the gate for us. Our first species of the day, once we had stepped into the circle, was a Great horned owl, hooting from across the reservoir.

Shortly after our arrival another car pulled into the parking lot. We thought it was some of the other sitters, but it was not. The driver turned out to be a fisherman with an inflatable boat that took about half an hour to inflate. During most of that time he kept his headlights on. They were aimed right at our mesquite tree, and lit up the entire mesquite bosque. Cynthia and I were able to keep our eyes from being blinded by the headlights by peeking through the vee in our mesquite.

We observed dozens of bats flitting through the mesquite bosque, consuming, no doubt, hundreds of dreaded mosquitos, which, had they survived, would have inflicted their bite upon us after sunrise. It was a unique, and much appreciated peek into Mother Nature at work keeping things in balance. Adam Martin arrived about 5:30, and Pete Moulton, and the other Cynthia, who had to attend to her exotic pet birds before leaving home, showed up about 6:00. the team was complete, when Phyllis Martin, Adam's wife, put in her appearance about 9:00, after taking care of some necessary shopping for her family.

The next two species that were added to our list were two newcomers to the list, a White pelican and a Marsh wren. We had a total of four new species for the day, bringing our total for the eight years up to 111. It had been another dry summer, and so far this fall the heat streak had not yet broken. Consequently species diversity in our area had left a lot to be desired. Although our species recorded in the prior seven years ranged from a low of 47 to a high of 51, I held out little hope that we would exceed 30 species in our count this year. Boy, was I in for a surprise. By the time we had quit, around 3:00 p.m., we had hit an all-time high of 54 species! We had a cool. cloudless, day, with occasional breezes in the 5-10 mph range. The high temperature for the day, however, was a near record-breaking 98 degrees. We raised almost $1,000 for the Maricopa Audubon Society.

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We drew the circle to include the head of our bed inside the house so we could lie there comfortably listening for owls. We heard one screech owl in the early a.m. We heard/saw about half as many species as we normally do here thanks to the pouring rain all day long. However, having one corner of the circle inside the house allowed for dry birdwatching -- and also allowed me to clean up the bedroom, which was sorely needed. All in all, a very productive Big Sit/Little Lie. Thanks for the opportunity!

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Doris Fitchett, Gene Bennett, Myrna Carlton, Mark McNeely, Terry McNeely, Steve Kinder,Ted Rights, Patrick Harrison, Anne and Don Downing, Larry Lade

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Weather: Sunny, partly cloudy. Windy fall weather. Min. +8 C, max. +17 C

Time: 7am to 4pm

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Weather: Clear, calm 18-30 degrees C.

Time at Location: 10 hours

This is the tenth year of our vulture migration count (average 28,000 Turkey Vultures each fall), but our first Big Sit!

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Frank G. arrived at the Milford Point far platform at 5am (pre-dawn), as usual, but the rain began then. Frank M. arrived by 6:30, and Patrick later (set the alarm at 3pm instead of 3am). Rain became so steady and soaking, that at 9:15am, we decided to move the site slightly to the sheltered observation tower at the CAS Coastal Center-where we started counting all over again, and were joined by Joe and AJ. Despite the near-steady rain, ne winds of 10-30mph, and temps in the 50s, our team managed to tally a good mix of herons, waders, ducks, gulls, hawks, and passerines. Frank M. was the last to leave at 4:30pm. Best birds were Great Cormorant, 2 Am. Bitterns, both night-herons, Wood Duck, Merlin, Peregrine Falcon, 4 Am. Golden-Plovers, 2 White-crowned Sparrows, and an escaped (?) Peach-faced Lovebird. Great fun, and we'll be back next year!

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The first bird of our count was the Great Horned Owl just after midnight.
Our day was overcast and rainy.

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AM: rain and heavy winds changing to windy and clear by 6pm. 2 hours spent at circle.

After having one of the driest and nicest Summer and Fall seasons here in the Pacific Northwest in years, I was expecting a great Big Sit! Why the weekend before I was on Mt Rainier at 6500 feet owling all night in warm weather and under clear calm skies. Who would think it would end? Well, this being my 4th. Big Sit, I should have! Yes, the weekend of the Big Sit marked the end of our long Summer with a huge wind and rain storm. It was so bad I didn't even drive out to my usual Big Sit site, Spencer Island, but instead stayed home and birded my yard. Now normally my yard would usually net me a good 20 or so species. But do to the bad winds even my yard birds were hiding low. Around 5 or 6 pm. the weather cleared and the winds died down enough for a few of my regulars to venture out to my feeders. On a lighter note, while taking a few photos of my Big Sit yard "site" I did manage to catch what any good paranormal expert ;-) would agree is a mysterious "ghost" hovering over a huge patch of Ivy in my front yard. This patch of Ivy has always been a mystery. It is shaped like a UFO..but since I rent my home I have no idea what is under the Ivy or why it is in that shape....maybe now we have an answer! Check out the photo. Hey, it was a slow, slow day! Oh...and for my list of birds, 9, yes, 9 species....there's always next year!

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Weather: temperatures in the upper 70's to low 80's, mostly cloudy, wind 5 to 10 MPH. 3 hours were spent at the location

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Weather: partly cloudy, brief periods of drizzle earrly on, wind NW 5-10

Time at Location 5:40am - 12:00pm noon

Anecdotes: Fantastic day with great weather that produced a fallout on the island. We never thought 100+ was possible. A flyby Yellow-headed Blackbird was the clear standout bird of the morning. Pre-dawn listening produced a good Swainson's Thrush flight with a few Gray-cheeks mixed in. Our only American Woodcock was one that Jim Stasz put in the flashlight around 6:15am. At dawn there was a Spotted Sandpiper on the beach that stayed only briefly (the tide was so high all day). Shortly after daybreak, the flight began, We had a large movement of Flickers, Tree Swallows, and warblers. The flight was one of the largest I have seen on Assateague and continued until noon. Other highlights for me included the Dickcissels, which we had at least 3 at one time and others later on. 6 is possibly an underestimate, Jim felt it more like 10. There seemed to be 1-2 hanging around behind the canoes. Purple Finches and Pine Siskin both put in an appearance, hopefully indicating at least a minor finch flight this year. Plus, there were several "only on the Big Sit!" highlights. My favorites were Mark keenly spotting a Brown Creeper found by Jim Stasz over a 100 feet away from the circle and all of us stretching ourselves to see a Red-eyed Vireo that was easily seen by taking two steps out of the circle.

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Circle was manned from 6am to 6pm.

Five brave sitters sat in the rain!! We were actually washed out for about1 1/2 hours in the morning and headed inside for cover. None-the-less the rain let up and towards 4pm the sun came out for about 30 min!! Despite the weather we had a good day with a total of 40 species in the nature center park.

Our site is located in a 6 acre nature park area surrounded by thorn brush (Granjeno, Mesquite, Brasil, etc) and visibility is severely limited. There is a small clearing straight up through the Mesquite canopy that yeilds a surprisingly good number of birds.

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Unfortunately, steady rain made us give up the sit after 2 1/2 hours. We were able to get 27 species, although recording on wet paper with a pen was quite a trick!

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Weather: Rainy & windy for most of the time, unfortunately.

Time at Location: 8 am - 2 pm

This Big Sit! effort added a new (though overdue) species to the park checklist: Peregrine Falcon. The official checklist for the park can be viewed at http://www.pluggablelogic.com/aves/lssp

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We started at 7:00 AM with cool temperatures, overcast, from 8-9:00 AM had a light rain. Skies gradually cleared and it turned into a sunny windy day. We got one species that was new to the circle, bringing our total for eight years up to 113. We ate well having bratwurst, hot dogs, potato chips, fruit salad, cookies, pastries, brownies, coffee and bottled water. A fun time was had by all.

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The cool wind and overcast conditions probably kept the bird count low.

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Early morning 06:25 AM to 06:35 am: light overcast, 60 degrees Farenheit, southwest winds 2-5 MPH then at 06:35 AM the winds switched to west norhtwest abruptly, conditions became overcast and temps dropped about 5 degrees as a front approached. From then until 9:00 AM winds were steady out of the west or west northwest at 10 gusting to 15 MPH heavy overcast and several light rain squalls, then around 09:00AM a large clearing appeared to the west and shortly thereafter it became clear and sunny for the remainder of the day. Winds remained steady out of the west and in early afternoon they eased and moved to the southwest. Temps reached around 65 F by early afternoon. Observers were present from 6:25am until 3pm (early departure due to Thanksgiving holiday in Canada) Holiday Beach Migration Observatory - prize money. Our second year doing the Big Sit, and once again a memorable day. As with last year I decided to start early enough to try and catch Screech and GH Owls. I arrived at 6:25AM in time to catch screech owl, but not GH Owl as the winds almost immediately picked up severely impairing listening for distant owls. The crew of observers and effort was essentially the same this year, and the birds observed showed a lot of consistency with the previous year. Indeed, our overall total was 82 species this year (including one warbler (sp) and one exotic) versus 83 species in 2002. In both years we've hit very poor to below average days for passerine movement, and it has been rather windy, so hearing had been tough. The highlight of the day was certainly the Demoiselle Crane which was spotted soaring over the hawk tower in early afternoon. Although the bird was initially identified as a Sandhill Crane, it became quickly clear that it was not that species, due to the strongly contrasting black trailing underwing, odd wing shape and flight, short black neck, and white spot on the head.

Fortunately Paul Pratt was able to get the bird in the scope to clearly observe the black extending onto the breast and the pattern of white on the head - otherwise we might have been inclined to call the bird a possible Common Crane. Another highlight was our first bird identified visually during daylight. As it was just barely getting light I spotted a bird directly overhead which looked very suspicious. We managed to track it down in the poor light with binocs, and amazingly enough it was a Peregrine! The light levels were extremely low and the bird was quite active and clearly hunting. We didn't see another bird of prey until 8:05 when our first Sharpie was spotted. Looking through the list, again we did well on raptors and waterfowl, but this year we bombed on shorebirds (just killdeer) and had only three warbler species. Woodpeckers were up with 4 species versus 2 in 2002, but most other families stayed about the same year to year. The cummulative total for the two years no stands at 100 species, which is not bad given that both years the day was pretty average for migration. We look forward to another Big Sit in the fall of 2004, and hope that the weather brings us a nice grounding of songbirds and that magic 100 total!

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Weather conditions were terrible - wind and heavy rain! Despite this I was able to watch from my property and saw 52 species! I went out from 6:00 AM until 7:00 PM. I went inside for basic needs. But I have porches on both front and back of my house and other sheltered sites. There were plenty of birds in my woods too. If I should receive the $500 Golden Bird prize, I would give it to the new Nature Center at Betty's Neck in Lakeville along the shore of Asswompsett Pond. It is the new Assawompsett Pond Preserve and there are going to be school programs, public programs about the wild plants and animals of the area there as the months progress. It took years and hard work to get the state and towns and cities and people involved to work out everything and to get the $10 million needed to preserve the land. My intention is to have the Big Sit there next year and form a team! I sent in my checklist already! Regards, Karen Holmes

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Weather: high of 84, light rain, overcast, light breeze
aproximately 8 hours

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Weather: Clear and calm all day.

Time at location: 6:00 AM - 2:00 PM and 6:15 PM - 8:00 PM

Our goal was to beat last years total of 42 species. We moved our circle north a few miles (we sat at Lincoln Point las year) to the Southwest corner of the Provo Airport Dike. We identified 53 species passing last year's number by 11.

Species of interest included a Barn Owl flying over the marsh south of the dike at dawn, an unexpected Townsend's Solitaire, Bewick's Wren, Sage Thrasher, MacGillivray's Warbler, Orange-crowned Warbler, Greater Yellowlegs, and Long-billed Dowitchers.

We also missed some species I thought we would get like Killdeer and Kestrel. We went out to our count spot the day before and saw a few species we weren't able to find on the day of the sit. These species were Merlin, Wilson's Phalarope, Violet-green Swallow, Bank Swallow, and Great Horned Owl. I also saw a Great Horned Owl hunting along the dike on my way out to our spot the morning of the sit and saw one again as I was leaving that night but we couldn't get one where it counted. We also may have seen Scaup, Green-winged Teal and some other waterfowl but they were to far away to be sure.

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Our location was at Buck Creek State Park near Springfield, Ohio in Clark County. We set up at the north end of the lake which is the shallow end. They have drawn the water level down a little exposing some mudflats. We could see a good portion of the mudflats, some open water, and behind us second growth shrubs with some bigger tree and a ridge a little farther away.

We started at about 7:00 AM with clouds forming and very little wind. It was misty for a few minutes and then stopped. The wind picked up some from the west and northwest and the clouds cleared. We all left by 4:15 PM. I returned at about 6:45 PM and left at about 7:15 PM but didn't record any more species. The temperature ranged from about 62 to 69 degrees Fahrenheit.

Clark County Audubon Society

We had a several shorebirds on the mudflats but not many ducks. The weather produced a small raptor movement with a good variety of species. The highlight of the day is when we spotted a young ibis on the mudflats near a flock of gulls. Unfortunately it was rather far away and a young bird which is very hard to identify to species. I have included on our list as a Plegadis Ibis species (either Glossy or White-faced) giving us a total of 59 species. I have used the latest AOU checklist order and names.