QUICK POST: I’m totally exhausted tonight, but if I don’t post this now, I’m not sure when I will get to it. This Friday and Saturday, I participated in my first Edgar A. Mearns Club Orange County Break 100, a friendly competition where teams of birders spend 24 hours trying to see or hear 100 species of bird. I was finally persuaded to do the ‘Break’ because John Haas could not make it this year, and Jeff Goulding, Lisa O’Gorman and Karen Miller were looking for a fourth member of their team. The break starts at 4:00 pm on Friday and goes until 4:00pm Saturday. In that time we visited many birding spots in Orange County, nearly 20 by my count. We finally broke 100 at Knapp’s View in Chester New York, where we got our 100th bird (Bobolink) and 101st bird (Eastern Meadowlark) at around 1:35 on Saturday afternoon. We didn’t do much good after that (it wasn’t from a lack of trying!), only adding an additional 4 birds to finish with 105 species on the day, but I think everyone on the team was happy with the total (though the winning team finished with 124 species). We had way too many laughs and saw some really great birds, including hearing my first Whip-poor-will and getting my lifer GRAY-CHEEKED THRUSH. Huge thanks to everyone on my team, I think we all did a pretty great job to “Break 100”.
Great photos, Matt, especially of the Gray-cheeked Thrush. I’m also amazed you could hold the camera steady if you were anywhere near as exhausted on Saturday as I was. The Break is a grueling but fun experience. Congratulations to you and your team on all the fabulous birds you found!
Thanks Kathy! The Break is grueling! And I don’t think I was holding the camera steady for most of the day as I’m really not super happy about the pics from the day. Congrats to your team too, it was a really fun day. Matt