Passport to Texas

Great Texas Birding Classic begins April 15 and runs through May 15.

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This is Passport to Texas

If you didn’t enter a team in the Great Texas Birding Classic by the April 1st deadline because you think you and your friends aren’t good enough birders. Fuhgeddaboudit.

Next year, enter The Big Sit.

The Big Sit is a wonderful category if you only have one or two good birders, and everyone else just has an interest in nature.

Shelly Plante is nature tourism manager for TPW and organizes the classic. Only one person on a Big Sit team needs to ID a bird for it to go on the team’s checklist.

It’s super easy, it’s easily accessible to everyone. And you go and bird in a 17-foot diameter circle for as much as you want in a day. I’ve seen people do it at their local park; I’ve seen people do it in their backyards, which is a lot of fun. So, there are so many different ways that you can do a Big Sit, and it’s just a lot of fun. We like to call it the tailgate party for birding, because people usually have a great food spread, and just a lot of camaraderie throughout the day. So that’s a lot of fun.

Food…friends…feathers? That just screams good times. Find out what this year’s teams spotted across the state between April 15 and May 15 at birdingclassic.org or eBirds.org, where teams upload their checklists.

Every team fills out a checklist and they upload it into eBird, which is an online bird checklist system through Cornell Lab of Ornithology that we use. So, teams are contributing to citizen science on an international level when they do the birding classic. Once they’ve submitted their checklist, they share that checklist with birding classic staff, and that’s how we know what was seen or heard.

Registrations fees fund habitat projects in the state.

We receive support from RAM Trucks. Built to Serve.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Great Texas Birding Classic

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This is Passport to Texas

Now in its 23rd year, the statewide, Great Texas Birding Classic remains one of the premier birding events in the world. It offers tournaments for every skill level.

[Like] the general naturalist who’s just getting started and knows a few birds could easily do the Big Sit. There are people that are really avid birders and keep lists and travel for birding, and they might choose to do a Big Day or a Big Week. There are youth tournaments for the kids who are just getting started and have some mentors who are helping them along the way. And then there are some mixed age tournaments that I think are a lot of fun for families to do. So there truly is something for everyone.

Shelly Plante oversees nature tourism at Texas Parks and Wildlife. Find details about the tournament at birdingclassic.org. The Classic runs from April 15th through May 15th. Money raised from fees goes to fund habitat conservation projects.

We have funded acquisition projects. We have funded restoration projects—which is invasive species removal and restoring habitat back to its natural state with native species. We’ve done enhancement projects for birders, which is putting in boardwalks or bird blinds or pavilions. So, we have done a lot of projects throughout the state of Texas.

Sign up at birdingclassic.org for updates; register your team by the April first deadline. Do it for the birds.

We receive support from RAM Trucks: Built to Serve

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Find the Ringer.

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This is Passport to Texas

In sports a “ringer’ is not a good thing. However, in Great Texas Birding Classic’s Big Sit tournament, it is.

You can have a team with all people who are beginning, and then they just have to be sure they have a ringer or two on their team who can ID the bird for them for it to go on their list.

That’s Texas Parks and Wildlife Nature Tourism coordinator, Shelly Plante who oversees the event. Our colleague, Bob Sweeney, who is an attorney, is also a Big Sit ringer.

You know, I’ve been fascinated with birds since childhood, and even in high school I was out in the field and woods with my binoculars and my book. I just think it’s an exciting, dynamic part of the natural world, and pretty easy if you’re willing to put a little time into it to develop a minimum level of knowledge.

Bob has done that and more, and says he enjoys helping beginning birders gain knowledge and confidence.

I think any teacher has a great feeling when they feel like someone in the class gets it. Someone snaps to it. That Eureka moment may come, not during the Big Sit, but it may be something that was learned during the Big Sit that is then used in the backyard, or used on a hike or communicated to another person who is wanting to start out, so maybe the light bulb when it goes on is the confidence to transmit that knowledge—I know what that is. I saw it in the Big Sit. And here’s why I think it’s that.

The Great Texas Birding Classic takes place April 15 through May 15th. Stay on top of the action at birdingclassic.org.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti

Hanging with friends and family during the Great Texas Birding Classic.

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This is Passport to Texas

Does sitting outdoors in a circle with friends and family sound like a birding tournament to you? It is, and it’s called The Big Sit.

We call them lovingly the tailgate party for birders. Because really it’s wherever you can set up a 17-foot diameter circle. Be that your backyard, a local park, a state park – anywhere that makes sense for you to be able to see a good group of birds and to spend a day with friends and family.

The Big Sit is one of the tournaments of the Great Texas Birding Classic, in its 22nd year. Shelly Plante, nature tourism manager at Texas Parks and Wildlife, coordinates event.

You can have as few as one person on your team, to as many as you can fit in that circle throughout the course of the day. And people can come in shifts. They don’t have to stay for the whole 24 hours. So, you could have a morning group, a midafternoon group. You could have them come throughout the day. No one has to stay there the entire time.

The Big Sit tournament is ideal for novice birdwatchers.

The Big Sit is great for beginners, because it lets you get your feet wet in the Birding Classic, and see what a bird watching tournament really is. Once you get your confidence in The Big Sit it’s easier to move on to doing a Sunrise to Noon tournament; it’s easier to say hey, I want to do a Big Day where I drive around to a lot of places. And so we have tournaments for that as well.

The Great Texas Birding Classic is April 15 through May 15th. Team registration closed April 1st, but you can stay on top of the action at birdingclassic.org.

Tomorrow, confessions of a birding classic ringer.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti

Daytime Big Sit group.

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This is Passport to Texas

For those who don’t know how the various birdwatching tournaments of The Great Texas Birding Classic unfold…

Groups of people go out and birdwatch for a half a day or a day and even as much as a week. And, they go out with their friends and family to see how many birds they can identify in a short amount of time, and the team with the most species on their list wins. Except for one tournament.

That one tournament is The Big Sit. Shelly Plante is the nature tourism manager at Texas Parks and Wildlife, and coordinates the Great Texas Birding Classic, now in its 22nd year.

The Big Sit is a fun one. In the Birding Classic, most of the tournament categories, everyone has to ID a bird for it to go on a list, but not the Big Sit.

In the Big Sit, Plante says only one team member has to ID a bird for it to make the list, either by sight or sound.

It’s the perfect event for the new birder. You can have a team with all people who are beginning, and then they just have to be sure they h have a ringer or two on their team who can ID the bird for them for it to go on their list. And it turns into a really fun day for people.

The Great Texas Birding Classic is April 15 through May 15th. Team registration is closed for this year, but you can stay on top of the action at birdingclassic.org.

Tomorrow, the mechanics of the Big Sit.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti