Bird watchers flock to N.J. competition

BIRDS, a whole bunch of them apparently, live in or visit New Jersey - and not just the flocks of Canada geese that fertilize our kids' soccer fields or the seagulls that steal our fries on the boardwalk.

The rest of them - those large black ones that crow loudly, the ones that quack and those angry blue things are generally lumped together as simply "birds" by the masses.

Pete Dunne , 58, of Cumberland County, knows all their names, and you should probably have a bird field guide or easy access to Google when you're speaking with him because he says things like this:

"I've got a warbler that could fit in tablespoon" or "Hold it, hold it, here comes a Scarlet Tanager."

Dunne's distractions during interviews make sense because he's a bird watcher and deep in training for the most placid pastime ever to have its own World Series.

That would be the World Series of Birding, a New Jersey Audubon Society event that's become the pre-eminent bird-watching event in the country, raising more than $9 million in conservation funding in its 25-year history in the Garden State. Beginning at midnight next Saturday, contestants will spend 24 hours looking and listening for as many different species of birds as possible from High Point to Cape May Point.

Contestants range from kids out to have fun with their parents to more than 100 teams comprised of fully sponsored ornithologists (they study birds) or part-time bird fanatics who claim they're just out to have fun and help preserve bird habitat in the nation's most densely populated state.

Fundraising aside, most of these teams unfurl their talons when it comes to the World Series. The top teams have scouts out right now, scouring all corners of the state with high-powered binoculars for rare and common birds. That's right, they are scouting for the entire week.

"I realize it all sounds pretty zany," Dunne said with a laugh. "But it's fun, and it's legal and you don't gain weight."

That's because most birders won't stop to eat the entire day of the competition and the most hardcore won't even take a bathroom break.

"There's none of that," said Bill Reaume, a school counselor from Delaware County and member of The Four Loons team. "You pack your food and pack a roll of toilet paper. It's a little nuts. It's birding for A types."

Reaume says the Loons aren't one of the elite teams in the World Series, yet they've still managed to raise $20,000 for the Nature Conservancy while competing in the event over the years. The top teams win a trophy and birding bragging rights, but no cash.

Those heavy hitters, which include the Swarovski Optik Sapsuckers out of Cornell University's Lab of Ornithology and The Nikon/Delaware Valley Ornithological Club Lagerhead Shrikes, have all the right eyes and ears to tick off 230-plus birds in the 24-hour span if conditions are good, Dunne said.

The only state where more birds have been seen in one day is Texas.

Birds are identified either by sight with a pair of binoculars or by sound with a good set of ears. The entire team must agree on the species and then it's checked off the list.

Any location in New Jersey is game as long as you're physically in the state when you spot a bird and not breaking any traffic or property laws, which has happened in the past.

"You get disqualified if you get a speeding ticket," said Mike Fritz, a 44-year-old pharmacist from Cape May County and member of the Lagerhead Shrikes. "Sometimes you really push the edge."

Competitors can't count parrots or snowy owls at the Cape May Zoo, but they can count a certain goose there because it's a visitor and not a resident. They can't count the mosquito, New Jersey's unofficial state bird, but they'll certainly feel it, Dunne says. Bald Eagles, once a rare sighting, have recovered and should be a staple on checklists for years, Dunne said, unlike another bald eagle that lives in New Jersey: Donovan McNabb.

Ethics are often optional for competitors in the sport that ends with a World Series but birders are "disgustingly honest," Dunne says, and follow a strict code for reporting birds. If you finish the day in Cape May with condors and flamingos on your checklist, your goose is cooked.

"If you get busted for having an active imagination for birds, it stays with you forever," said Marshall Iliff, an ornithologist and member of the Swarovski Optik Sapsuckers. "It ruins you."

The World Series is also a winner for outdoor enthusiasts in New Jersey and anyone else looking to admit they harbor sentimental feelings for the state, a perennial butt of jokes that often end with armpit, dump or rest stop.

For birds traveling back and forth between forests of the far north and southern shores, New Jersey really is one big rest stop. It's a place to get a quick meal of horseshoe crab eggs and maybe a nap, and pound for pound, the state's become one of the best places in the world to spot birds.

"It's incredibly important," Reaume said. "What you have there is pretty remarkable. There's freshwater swamps, mountains and highlands, salt marshes, ocean habitat and farmland. It's a migration superhighway."

Competitors, with their heads out all windows, including the sunroof, will log hundreds of miles on their cars during the World Series, hitting key locations in the state such as the Great Swamp, the Pinelands and Cape May County, the state's crown jewel for birders.

Still, this is New Jersey not Alaska, and without trying to crack a joke at the state's expense, each birder said there's one place everyone stops, a prized location that draws hundreds of thousands of birds, some from Europe.

"Everyone will hit the Florence dump for gulls," said Iliff. "Sewage plants and dumps are traditionally great birding areas."

It turns out that sea gulls aren't just one species, but collectively they all love to hang out at sewage plants and dumps, eating things you've already eaten. That is of course, when they're not dive-bombing your pizza on the boardwalks of South Jersey.

So if you see men and women traipsing through sewage and staring at garbage this week, remember they're just birders and they're having fun. *