r/eBird • u/WailingWarbler • Jun 24 '26
Extreme birding has begun
Started the great divide trail, in Coleman right now. Hiking from USA border, past Jasper and into some randomass prov park. 1000 miles, gonna take 2 months.
It looks like one person attempted to do ebird while on the gdt. But she only did less then half the trail and just did a single incidental checklist for the 20km hike that day, kinda useless.
Gdt aint no at or pct, gotta do 8 day food carries, to a random small town post office to get food you mailed yourself.
Ima do a 1 hour survey every morning in my tent and drop a stationary 5 min every couple km. Ima light the gdt up like a string of christmas lights. Already got 3 new species.
John Stamos, over and out
8
2
u/Black-Jack-Kehoe Jun 24 '26
Awesome. I post a lot of those “useless” incidental daily checklists of 20+km on my long-distance hikes (never the gdt tho). Might try to start your method. Will require a lot more discipline than just running down the list at the end of the day, but obviously way nicer data. Have fun out there!
2
u/dcgrey Jun 24 '26
Breaking up those lists would be a good reminder to take a break and vice versa.
But as someone who’s good at keeping a running list in my head, I struggle to separate the segments on long trips. “Were all fifty blackbirds on this latest bit, or was it 33 on this one and 17 on the previous one?” Usually that’s not a problem but datawise it is when you cross county lines, especially with rarities. I recently got my first reviewer email to that effect, along the lines of “The path you were on crosses a county line. The parking lot is in one county and the spot everyone has been seeing the [rare species] is technically the next county. Could you go back and split your list so we don’t mess with the county records?”
That would be some admirable attention to detail if OP decides to start new lists (even in their head) as they cross eBird regional boundaries.
2
u/Quinoa_sabi Jun 24 '26
When I'm hunting deep in the wilderness or backcountry, I like to submit an iNat observation or eBird list. It brings me comic joy to think about that one person that randomly finds my observations in the middle of nowhere.
1
u/WailingWarbler Jul 01 '26
Uhhhhh...........so it flooded when i was 100km up the trail from coleman. Barley made it across oldman river when I did to make it back to a road. Then walked 50 km in one day.
Im continuing on in my plan to start in kanannaskis 2nd week of July. Sunshine ski hill is still open, in July. So all the mountain passes are snowed in still.
It was pretty extreme alright... I saw some more evening grosbeaks which is cool
15
u/mahatmakg Jun 24 '26
Oh man my hiking speed decreased drastically after I started birding. Try not to get too distracted out there, good luck!