Big Day 2015: Chasing the State Record in Support of the Coastal Center

Bird number 191: Upland Sandpiper. Photo by Pesayo/Carolinabirds.org

by Frank Gallo
Associate Director
Milford Point Coastal Center

It started as it always does, with the five of us standing together at midnight, in a marsh in Hartford County, with high hopes.

Our team — the Connecticut Audubon Society’s Raven Lunatics (Nick Bonomo, Patrick Dugan, Dave Tripp, Fran Zygmont and me) — was beginning its annual Big Day, a 24-hour birding competition and fundraiser for the Coastal Center at Milford Point. We hoped to raise $7,500 in pledges to support the center’s educational and conservation initiatives. It would also be a chance to best our Big Day record of 192 species and to finally reach our goal of finding 200 species in a 24-hour period in Connecticut, which no team in New England has accomplished.

Read the whole story here…