Holy cow, I'm going from sandals to ear muffs! Fresh off of my trip to the Rio Grande Valley Bird Festival (read my post about the uber rarity that showed up on 10000 Birds), I hit the ground running back into the swing of things in Minnesota and I'm so excited to help The National Eagle Center out with a fundraiser on Thursday, November 14--and you can follow along.
November 14 is Give to the Max Day in Minnesota where non profits ask for donations and many are eligible for matching grants! Scott Mehus and I will be out having a contest called Bird to the Max to see who can get the most points by seeing different bird species throughout the day. All the money raised will go to the inspiring new exhibit, Masters of the Sky: Raptors, Flight and Migration opening this winter at the National Eagle Center. I also just found out that they have a $5,000 challenge match from their Board of Directors! Every online donation on November 14th helps them "Max" the Match!
Can you spare any money? Please consider donating online on the Give to the Max website. Every little bit helps, even if it's only $10. Whether you donate or not, please follow online. I'll post pictures and video to Instagram, Facebook and Twitter for my stuff and the Nation Eagle Center will post updates on their Facebook and Twitter accounts for both Scott and me.
Now this isn't a typical bird-a-thon…no, the National Eagle Center thought it would be fun to bring math into it by assigning extra points for certain bird species:
Masters species (species listed above that are featured in their new Masters of the Sky exhibit) we will get 10 points for each individual bird we see.
Bald Eagle hour is 10am-11am and we get 20 points per bald eagle seen in this hour.
Golden Eagle Hour is 3pm-4pm and we get 20 points per golden eagle seen in this hour.
For all other species we get 1 point throughout the day.
So I'll be out with my iPhone 5s, PhoneSkope adapter and Swarovski ATX spotting scope and will try to tally more birds than Scott. He keeps better tabs on golden eagles than I do, so I think that is where I might lose some points. But I found out that Neil's house falls within the boundaries of where we can bird and know his yard and birds like the back of my hand…I just might prevail.
If you have any tips for any of the Masters of the Sky species for extra points, please let me know.