Central Massachusetts Birder's Presents The 1st Worcester County Winter Bird Rally When: Sunday, February 16th from 12:00am-5:30pm. Where: Worcester County. Teams will be scattered around the whole county to cover as much as we can. We desire to have new areas birded rather than all teams ending up at the usual hotspots. Not that hotspots would be restricted in any way. Why: Our objective is to uncover new species while exploring under-explored parts of this large county. The county is underrated with low numbers of species being recorded or reported. Who: Currently we are at about 30 people who have stated they are participating. We would love to add many more to maximize the success of this! Anyone can join in! The only criteria is that it's within Worcester County borders. You can establish a team of 3 or more on your own or we can pair you up with others to form a complete team. You can also create your own team name! This is more of a friendly competition in a way to push each-other to try harder out in the field and possible look more in-depth at large flocks to uncover rare or uncommon species. The strategy for all teams is to see the most species. Future Outlook: We are doing this to see if it plays out the way we hope it will. Our goal is to establish 3 rallies a year. Fall, Winter and Spring so we can hit all the migrations and more overall species. We understand that this is last minute but we wanted to get a trial run in before the spring. We didn't want to do it in March as that's a transition period for birds and wanted to get winter species before they migrate. ***In addition to covering as many different areas as possible, we would like to ask teams to submit eBird reports for their various stops. eBird data is often in short supply in the winter, especially away from the coast or local hotspots, and each checklist will add to our knowledge of the distribution and abundance of birds in these area. ***Should any team find birds on the state review list, we also ask for full submissions to the Massachusetts Avian Records Committee. Birders may see the web page and review list here: http://www.maavianrecords.com Justin Lawson Millbury, MA My Wildlife Photos/Videos http://www.creakyfloorstudios.com/wildlife justindlawson AT gmail.com