Photo: KENA BETANCUR / AFP / Getty Images
NEWBURYPORT, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — The annual Superbowl of Birding returns this Saturday, but despite the competition's name, there will not be any touchdowns, field goals, or expensive commercials.
Instead, birders from Massachusetts and New Hampshire will fan out along the North Shore and surrounding area in a race to spot as many different species of birds as they can. Each species will earn their team points, with higher point values given to rarer birds.
The Mass Audubon Joppa Flats Education Center hosts the annual event, which will begin 5 a.m. Saturday morning and end twelve hours later.
David Moon, Community Science and Coastal Resilience Manager, North Shore, told WBZ NewsRadio Friday that the competition attracts an elite level of birdwatcher every year.
"[They have] experience with when things show up, where they show up. They also have this intense desire to experience that moment of 'Oh, I got it,'" Moon said.
"Everybody is working hard," said Steven Myrick, who has taken part in every Superbowl of Birding since it began 21 years ago. "Their own individual routes and how they are going to see the most birds and how they can get the rare birds before everybody else. But it’s also friendly too, and there’s a lot of sharing going on."
Myrick told WBZ NewsRadio that he was fine-tuning his strategy right up to the event's start.
"I got it down to the ten-minute intervals where I’ll be every minute of the day," Myrick said.
Although Myrick did not want to reveal his strategy to WBZ, Moon explained that Saturday's sightings will be shared.
"One fun element of it is that they have to call in the most rare sightings, and that gets shared widely with the rest of the teams and with the public, so the next day people can go looking around for all these unusual creatures," Moon said.
There are 11 prizes up for grabs, including the Joppa Cup Award for the team who scores the most points, the Sitting Duck Award for the team who identifies the most species while sitting in one place, the Lifers Award for the individual who sees the most birds for the first time, and geography-based awards for Essex County, Massachusetts, Rockingham County, Massachusetts, and the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge.
WBZ's Kendall Buhl (@WBZKendall) reports.
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