Date: 4/29/25 4:14 am From: my AT&T YAHOO MAIL <shenthorn205...> Subject: Re: Southern OK Big Day
Love it! You must really know your bird sounds.
Sent from AT&T Yahoo Mail on Android
On Mon, Apr 28, 2025 at 8:24 PM, Melinda Droege<oklagranny26...> wrote:
Thanks Landon for your Big Day report and Congrats. I used to love Big days and yours sounds like it was perfect with almost no big misses. Wonder if you had time to get to Eldorado for those specials tho you did get Ladderbacked. What time did you start and end?
Bet next year you or someone will get 200!
Again, congrats!Melinda DroegeBartlesville
On Mon, Apr 28, 2025 at 6:05 PM Landon Neumann <landonneumann25...> wrote:
Hi all,
Last Saturday Mike Yough, Neil Gilbert, and I conducted an OK big day for Payne County Audubon's Birdlam competition. The route consisted of southern McCurtain Co including Red Slough to Hackberry. This is a similar route that a couple Texas birders broke the state all time big day record several years ago hitting 195. While we didn't expect to break the record (about a week early imo) we had a fantastic day hitting 187 species. This shatters the previously OK April Big Day record by 40 species. Basically had all expected birds for the date plus 14 waterfowl species and many lingering winter songbirds pushing our total up. Best birds were probably Northern Waterthrush, Black-throated Green Warbler (both warblers 3rd Tillman Co records), and Black-headed Grosbeak in the mesquite trees at Hackberry by the abandoned buildings. Also had 24 Buff-breasted Sandpipers at a p-dog down near Ryan OK. Attached is an ebird trip report if you're curious for more info - https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://ebird.org/tripreport/358283__;!!GNU8KkXDZlD12Q!6VkOa1W-K-gqzMR6jOLzSuRwrES3ztFxfDAb6jfKk2x_QTYQcAhZk8J5LxhUUhUpYF9BsKiBN-QwxTmjj1BMJYo$ [ebird[.]org]. The route was approx 650 miles.
Overall, I do think you could get 200 species in a day in OK from late April to mid May. I've run this route twice now. First time was the first week of May and had 165 species. I made some slight changes to the route this time by fine tuning the route and adding Crosstimbers WMA for a couple species. However, I think the key to 200 species in a day in OK is Hackberry being great (it was good on Saturday but the excessive rain reduced the amount of mud it appeared so we missed some easy peeps) and having great weather (cloudy, no wind, and cold front, which we had on Saturday), plus some luck. You could easily run this route next weekend when theoretically there are more potential species and get less than 187 if you get a hot windy day.
Landon NeumannStillwater, OK
