Stephen Ingraham (who?)
the unofficial site for birders and digiscopers using Zeiss equipment.
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2007 World Series of Birding: Cape May NJ For 24 years, The Cape May Bird Observatory and New Jersey Audubon have sponsored what has become the premiere competitive birding and conservation fund-raising event in the world: The World Series of Birding. Over those 24 years thousands of individuals and teams have competed, and close to 9 million dollars has been raised for conservation. The list of past participants, and particularly winners, reads like a whose-who of birding in our time. Carl Zeiss Sports Optics has sponsored a team, if I remember right, in all but one of those competitions, the team lead by Pete Dunne, the founder of the event. This year well over 100 teams competed in the many divisions. ZEISS also sponsors the Youth Division, which had 23 teams competing this year. And, last but not least, this was my first year as a competitor. The Zeiss Diascopers fielded a team in the Digiscoping division. We managed to get a recognizable image of 93 species (94, but I ran out of time locating them all and organizing them for the 11pm submission deadline, and that is "recognizable" by Cape May standards...where birding by impression was born!). For a look at our submission go to WSB. I was reminded again of how vital this competition is...and I am using vital in its root sense of "full of life". Though it is exhausting for all involved, from the organizers to the participants, and takes a lot out of us all, it always puts more back in! You come away feeling just a little more alive, a little more vital. That the event "does good" for birds and the birding community, that it funds good conservation works, is, of course important to its vitality, but it would, in many ways, be almost as vital if fun were the only outcome. And that is the bottom line. The WSB is, in hindsight, after you catch up on sleep, fun. The kind of thing you look forward to doing all year. The kind of event that you want to continue to be part of. Next year is the 25th anniversary of the event. Big doings are threatened, big doings are promised. If you have ever considered putting together at team, or finding a place on one, this is the year to get serious about it. It's bound to be fun. Funner. A real Celebration of 25 years of fun conservation. And if that isn't vital in our day and age (shifting the usage to it's more general sense), then I don't know what is. As usual, I have tried to capture a bit of the feeling in some images.
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