science

World Series of Birding

World Series of Birding is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand World Series of Birding rather than just read about it. In short: The World Series of Birding is an annual birding competition organised by the New Jersey Audubon Society since 1984. Participating teams compete to identify the greatest number of bird species by sight or sound in a 24-hour period.

Key takeaways

World Series of Birding belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect World Series of Birding to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of World Series of Birding from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The World Series of Birding is an annual birding competition organised by the New Jersey Audubon Society since 1984. Participating teams compete to identify the greatest number of bird species by sight or sound in a 24-hour period. The event is run as a way of drawing attention to birding as a sport, the migration of birds, and as a fundraiser for conservation efforts. The event is primarily run within New Jersey however some parts of the competition are run internationally over the internet. There are three levels of competition, each designed to accommodate teams of differing ages and expertise.

Bird Conservation Challenge (Level I): teams of 3–6 members, all at least 18 years of age. This is the primary competitive event of the World Series of Birding. Teams are required to create a webpage introducing their team, their cause, and give information about how people may pledge to the team. New Jersey Audubon Ambassador Challenge (Level II): teams of any size and age. Intended for teams competing for fun and as a means to raise funds for the New Jersey Audubon Society. Zeiss Youth Birding Challenge (Level III): teams of 3–6 members, all of age 6–18. Intended to engage school children in competitive birding. This challenge is split into 4 divisions based on school grade and different rules apply for each division.

Awards There are a series of awards offered for the Level I and Level III challenges. They each support different achievements and ways of competing. There are no awards for the Level II challenge as this is a non-competitive challenge intended for fun and raising money for the New Jersey Audubon Society. The awards for the Level I challenge are only eligible for teams with all members above 19 years of age and can be won by teams competing from any area of New Jersey. The awards are as follows:

Urner-Stone Cup - 1st place. Presented to the team with the highest overall number of species. Stone Award - 2nd place. Presented to the team with the second-highest overall number of species. Stearns Award - 3rd place. Presented to the team with the third-highest overall number of species. Big Stay Award. Presented to the team with the highest number of species identified from a single location. Wakefern Food Corp./ShopRite LGA Award. Presented to the team with the highest species "par" for a single county. The team's total is compared to a set "par" value, and the team with the highest percentage of the "par" wins the award. Cape May County Award. Presented to the team with the highest total species within Cape May County. Cape Island Cup. Presented to the team with the highest total species south of the Cape May Canal. Carbon Footprint Challenge. Presented to the team with the highest total species with zero carbon footprint (i.e. the team travels by foot, bicycle, rowing, etc.) The awards for the Level III challenge are given based on division, which is based on school grade. They are as follows:

Zeiss Youth Division A Challenge. Presented to the team with the highest total species within Elementary School Grades 1 through 5. Zeiss Youth Division B Challenge. Presented to the team with the highest total species within Middle School Grades 6 through 8. Zeiss Youth Division C - Peter Dunne Future Leaders in Birding Award. Presented to the team with the highest total species within High School Grades 9 through 12. Zeiss Youth Division D - Carbon Free Kids Award. Presented to the team with the highest total species in Grades 6 through 12 with zero carbon footprint. No award offered in the World Series of Birding involves a cash prize. The competition is primarily intended as an awareness and fundraising event for bird conservation.

History The idea for the World Series of Birding came from Pete Dunne, one of America's foremost authors on birding and natural history, and former longtime director of the Cape May Bird Observatory. The first World Series of Birding was held on May 19, 1984, and the winning team included Dunne, David Sibley (author of the renowned The Sibley Guide to Birds), the late Pete Bacinski (former director of NJ Audubon's Owl Haven Nature Center and Sandy Hook Bird Observatory), Bill Boyle (author of A Guide to Bird Finding in New Jersey), and the legendary Roger Tory Peterson (inventor of the modern field guide) and was sponsored by Bird Watcher's Digest. Their total included 201 species, including a fork-tailed flycatcher— tropical species rarely seen anywhere in the United States, let alone New Jersey. Since the first competition, the World Series has been held annually on a date between May 9 and May 19, which coincides with the height of the spring bird migration through New Jersey. Winning tallies have ranged from a low of 182 species in 1985 to a high of 231 species in 2003 for the team sponsored by Nikon Sport Optics and the Delaware Valley Ornithological Club (DVOC). The event has steadily gained in popularity over the years; in 1984, 13 teams took part, compared with over 60 in 2006. Over the years, the World Series of Birding has raised more than $9,000,000 for bird conservation. In 2007, filmmaker Jason Kessler released his documentary, "Opposable Chums: Guts & Glory at The World Series of Birding," which covered both the history and logistics of the event. In 2022, Birdability’s “Team Nuthatch” became the first ever team in World Series’ history to be composed entirely of disabled birders.

Strategies

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Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with World Series of Birding

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what World Series of Birding claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to World Series of Birding before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about World Series of Birding ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of World Series of Birding

In research: World Series of Birding appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses World Series of Birding in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: World Series of Birding is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Birdwatching, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for World Series of Birding outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study World Series of Birding in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what World Series of Birding means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain World Series of Birding out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is World Series of Birding in simple terms?

Why does World Series of Birding matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study World Series of Birding?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on World Series of Birding.