Montezuma Muckrace time!

I have 36 hours to go until the start time of this year's Montezuma Muckrace - a 24-hour Big Day competition at the Montezuma Wetlands Complex. If you're not familiar with the Big Day concept - you try to find as many species of birds as possible in one day. In this case, teams compete in competition to find species in a defined area - the MWC. We raise money for conservation projects by collecting pledges based on the number of species found by our team. Last year, the Muckrace raised nearly $10,000 for conservation projects involving the Cerulean Warbler.

This year, I'm competing on one of two Cornell Student Bird Club teams - the Scissor-tailed Prairie-Robins. Cornell Student teams have a long history of placing high in the standings - often at least one of our teams are in the top three. Last year, one student team placed Second, while mine placed sixth with 119 species. See last year's results here.

So - root for us when we hit the field at 8pm tomorrow. And if you're interested in pledging for our team, please write soon - it's not too late.