Today Kenny Frisch, Jeff Bilsky, and Tim Avery set out for southern Utah to do some last minute scouting and prep for tomorrow's Utah Big Day.

We saw over 100 species along the drive and found a couple if great birds that we will need if we hope to hit at least 200.

We're about to sit down and relax for a few hours before we get started. Check back to see what's happening throughout the day!

Good Birding
Kenny, Jeff, and Tim

Here are 3 silhouettes of raptors...just though I would post them for fun and any guesses (well, not guesses...ID's).

Black Phoebe taken in 2007 in San Juan County

For the past four years I have been working in, and goofing around in Natural Bridges National Monument. It's one of the most beautiful places in Utah, and I believe that it's a very underrated location in our national parks system. In the four years of working in Natural Bridges, I've documented Black Phoebes in two seperate years. In 2009, I had one individual. In the years 2010 and 2011 I saw/heard no Black Phoebes. This year, I had 10 seperate individuals (possibly more. I couldn't tell if some singing birds were the same birds I flushed, or different birds)! Some of those birds even seemed to be setting up territory, and two were carrying nesting material. I was blown away by the number of Black Phoebes I counted in the park this year, and I started to wonder why the numbers went from one, to zero, to zero, to ten. I've heard of Black Phoebes expanding their range in the Western United States, and I've heard of them moving northward along the Colorado River, but that much of an increase just doesn't make sense to me. While working, I noticed that the water in Natural Bridges seemed unusually high, and I had to skirt around pools that normally weren't there. As I was doing so, I wondered if this could be the reason that Black Phoebe numbers were unusually high in Natural Bridges this year. Is this a natural expansion of their range, or are they taking advantage of the better than normal habitat situation? It would be interesting to follow over the years. If I had a way of measuring water levels, and comparing them with Black Phoebe numbers in Natural Bridges, maybe I'd have myself a hypothesis. For now, I only know that this year there were 10 times more Black Phoebes in Natural Bridges than I've ever counted.

The image above shows just a portion of 

the 200+ species we hope to see/hear.

A week from today on Monday May 14th, Utah Birders Jeff Bilsky, Kenny Frisch, and I are going to attempt to break the current Utah Big Day Record of 202 species set by Colby Neuman, Mark Stackhouse, and David Wheeler on May 13, 2001. A Big Day Count is a single-team effort in which the primary objectives are (1) to identify as many bird species as possible during a single calendar day and (2) to strive to have all team members identify all species recorded. (ABA: Big Day Count Rules).

This appears to be the first official Utah Big Day in more than a decade although it's hard to keep track of these things. This years migration, weather, and timing look to be pretty good for a big day although it's hard to tell what they day will be like until it's actually happening. We will start the day at midnight in Washington County and spend the first 10 hours of the day visiting numerous locations around the county. We will be scouring various spots in the dark trying to pick up nightjars, owls, marsh birds, and a number of songbirds typically active during the early hours of the day. Lytle Ranch is a must as well as several other spots that will provide our early morning birding before we start the nearly 400 mile trek that will take them from St. George, up I-15 to the very northern tip of the state. The afternoon and evening will be spent trying to add those species which aren't present in Washington County this time of year or at all.

By the end of the day we will have traveled more than 600 miles and from 2700' at Lytle Ranch to over 9,000' in elevation in the Wasatch Mountains. Being our first Utah Big Day we have high hopes that our route will provide us with the maximum exposure to habitat and birds--but anticipate it will be far from easy and probably push us to the extremes in what is the most hectic and draining birding there is. It's a competition but for me it is also a chance to be able to travel our great state from one end to another in one day and see/hear as much as possible. The ultimate gluttony for birding.

You will be able to follow us as we make constant updates from the field via twitter at:

http://www.twitter.com/utahbirders 

We will also try to have a live blog going with more in depth updates as the day progresses at:

http://www.utahbigday.com/

We hope it's a very big--big day.

Yesterday, while hiking around Washington Park and Terrace near Mountain Dell in Salt Lake County, I stumbled on a moose. I was able to get some great video that captured not just the moose, but an amazing cacophony of bird sounds as well. Just thought I'd post for any who want to pick through and try to identify everything that is singing and calling in the background. It was an amazing spring day to be in the mountains. Hope you're all enjoying yourselves out there.