Birders brave cold for ‘Big January’ competition

Meredith Sampson, left and fellow birder Annette Cunniffe look for different species of birds at Greenwich Point beach. Birders compete to get the most species during January.

(Helen Neafsey/Staff photo) Meredith Sampson lifted her binoculars and peered at a flock of gulls hopping in the shallows of Long Island Sound at Greenwich Point.

“What I’d like to see are white-winged gulls,” Sampson, a Greenwich resident and professional wildlife rehabilitator, said on a recent morning as she scanned the shoreline. “Iceland gulls and glaucous gulls. That’s G-L-A-U-C-O-U-S. This actually can be a very good month. This winter we’re experiencing what’s called an irruption of winter finches. Large numbers of common redpolls. We’ve also had pine grosbeaks.”

For many, January is a time to recover from the hectic holidays by watching this NFL or “Grey’s Anatomy” season wrap up from a comfortable sofa.

But for avid birders like Sampson, the month offers a chance to get out into the bracing cold and pick through thick woods, gorges, beaches and hills during “Big January,” an informal, relatively new competition among Connecticut hobbyists. Organized by the Connecticut Ornithological Association, the event brings dozens of birders to every corner of the state, to identify and record at least 90 different species.

“It’s kind of just a fun, bragging-rights kind of thing,” said Luke Tiller, a member of the Fairfield-based ornithological association who is compiling the list of top finishers this year. “There’s no big prize but it’s something that people do to entertain themselves. People are getting relatively competitive about it, traveling across the state to find birds. I came in 10th once, so that was my moment of glory.”

Many of those who participate in the competition are active members of an online birders’ discussion list through the ornithological association.

Lifelong Greenwich resident Joseph Zeranski, a birder for 40 years who co-wrote “Birds of Connecticut” in 1990, said he made a point during his most active years in the hobby of going out on New Year’s Day to search for bird species.

“It gets people outdoors,” said Zeranski, formerly a vice president of Audubon Greenwich and member of the Conservation Commission who edits and compiles summer bird counts for the ornithological association. “It gets people looking at nature, doing something a little meaningful rather than just holing up for the month. And in the process of this, people do come up in the long-term with information that benefits our understanding about what’s happening in our season.”

Sampson said she finished second in the competition last year, and she’s traveled as far away as Mystic and the upper reaches of Litchfield County to claim the title this season.

“It’s been hard work but I’ve been doing very well,” Sampson said. “I’m not going to give away what number I’m at right now.”

Besides the competition, “Big January” offers an excuse to go out and get better at birding –Êa skill that Sampson said she’s still honing after 30 years in the hobby.

“When I started out doing this, I would just squeak over 90 (species), but I find that by doing it this way I get into it more and more each year,” Sampson said. “I still find myself becoming a better birder.”

Traveling to the Point with Sampson this morning is town resident Annette Cunniffe. A floral designer who took up birding five years ago, Cunniffe now owns her own binoculars and tripod with a telescope.

“Birding is great because you go to so many different places that you normally wouldn’t go to,” said Cunniffe, who is competing in her third Big January. “Meredith and I, we’re heading out after this to get a new bird before I go to work. But I won’t tell you where we’re going.”

By Michael Dinan
Staff Writer – Greenwich Time