A birding team from LSU (Dan Lane, Mike Harvey, Glenn Seeholzer) and Peru (Fernando Angulo) broke the all-time, big-day record with 354 species in 24 hours, on the way to Abra Patricia Moyobamba in San Martin and Amazonas.
According to the Peruvian ornithologist, Fernando Angulo, the activity was held on October 14 and the team managed to break the record of 342 birds species seen in 24 hours set in Kenya, Africa.
“We tried to break the record of species seen in one day and we brought it off, we watched 354 birds, the previous mark was 342,” said the Peruvian birding expert.
The foreign birders, who flocked to Peru to indentify rare species, come from the Louisiana State University Museum of Natural Science.
Angulo said the new mark is currently in the certification phase by the American Birding Association (ABA), a world-renowned organization of people interested in birding.
It should be noted that, in 1982, LSU researcher Ted Parker and Princeton graduate student Scott Robinson set the world big day record of 331 species, which was tallied at a single site, Cocha Cashu Biological Station in Manu National Park, Peru.
The record was beaten in Kenya in 1986 by John Fanshawe and Terry Stevenson, who recorded 342 birds on a single day, but also using light aircraft.
A big day is what birders call a competition in which a birder or team of birders tries to see as many bird species as possible in a 24 hour period.
There are many variations, but most big days start at midnight and finish at midnight the following day. It might pit multiple teams against each other during a single day, or a single team might attempt a big day to see if they can beat a previous record.
Peru is among the top countries in the world for bird diversity, with roughly 1840 species registered. This makes it a great place to attempt to beat the world big day record.
According to the National Service of Natural Areas Protected by the State (Sernanp), more and more people are getting interested in birding; for instance, there are more guides specialized in the different ecosystems of Peru, and a sustainable increase of visitors to the protected natural has been recorded.
(END) JCR/MAO/RMB
Published: 10/17/2014