Participants in the second annual Dungeness Spring Fling this May obtained pledges in a variety of activities, including biking, running, hiking and birding. Participants and sponsors used an online Performance Tracker to follow accomplishments - mileage, species found and projected totals of money raised for the Dungeness River Audubon Center.

Last year, aside from my developing software for the Performance Tracker, my wife, Julie, and I had formed the only birding team, Swift Swallows. It found 295 species in the U.S. and raised $1,400, second best among 16 Spring Fling teams.

This year, we set personal goals of 140 species and team goals of 500 species and $5,000. We expanded the team, giving us excellent coverage across the northern U.S. Our chances of finding anywhere near 500 species were doomed, however, when our southern birder friends were unable to help. Local teammates lined up sponsors and pledges, and I set up a spreadsheet for Swift Swallows to calculate money raised from a complicated set of pledges.

To spur fundraising efforts via enhanced competitiveness, we recruited two local birders to form and lead other birding teams. Unfortunately, those teams didn't jell, so a few of their would-be members joined our team.

On Saturday, May 1, we attended two Birdathon warm-up field trips led by Bob Boekelheide, director of the River Center. New species for the season were a black-throated gray warbler, a spotted sandpiper and a greater yellowlegs. A highlight bird was a pileated woodpecker at Railroad Bridge Park. It chiseled a large feeding hole in a dead tree in about 10 minutes as we watched from 30 or so feet away.

Later, a teammate and I visited several shores, seeking water birds that might move north before Birdathon day, a week later. At the mouth of the Elwha River, a water barrier kept us from getting close to flocks of gulls. Strong winds shook my spotting scope and left me unable to find a target Thayer's gull.

After dinner, with the tide optimum for finding shorebirds, Julie and I drove to 3 Crabs, where the continuing strong winds whipped sand at our faces. Rather than expose our expensive optics to sandblasting, we quit, having found 66 species.

We continued on May 2, extending our personal species count to 93 by nightfall. During Birdathon, discussed here last month, our monthly count topped 125.

While driving friends back from Port Angeles following the Spring Fling event "Great Board Walk" on May 15, we stopped at a good local spot for wood ducks, which we still needed for our personal lists. We found two beautiful males (see photo), a life bird for one of our friends.

Meanwhile our team also prospered. Far-flung teammates were finding dozens of species that never visit

Sequim and the team exceeded our goal of $5,000.

A couple days later an e-mail message from a teammate alerted us to the presence of a rare duck (for here), a redhead, on Kirner Pond.

A quick drive to the pond netted us the redhead and a pied-billed grebe, without even needing to get out of our car in the rain.

Steady progress marked the next two weeks, both personally and for the team. Its total surged past 300 species, led by Mark Garland, a professional birder and our lone East Coast teammate. He ultimately was credited with 70 "unique" species, each worth a $5 bonus from one sponsor.

Then an odd thing happened. End-of-month trips to the east side of the Cascades by a few teammates swelled their bird lists, but projected funds dropped. A teammate living in Wenatchee had established 30 unique species early in the month.

Now our local birders were wiping out the $5 bonuses by finding the same species, while not having per-species pledges adequate to offset our losses. The intended incentive had backfired. Ultimately, with the approval of the sponsor providing the bonuses, I rewrote the rules for calculating funds and we recaptured our lost bonuses.

Swift Swallows' total funds moved above $9,000 on June 1. Our final team total was 368 species and our personal finds were above 150 species. Final results are online at www.dungenessspringfling.org/sf/sf_shell.php. We had so much fun we can hardly wait to do this again next year.



Dave Jackson is series editor and Web master. Send comments to him at editor@olybird.org or 683-1355. Details of Spring Fling results, upcoming meetings and field trips are on Web site www.olybird.org.