The Results are in for the First Annual RI Cup Big Day Competition!!The first annual RI Cup Big Day results are in the books! On February 11th we had a total of eight teams competing for the RI Cup Eagle along with one additional team not eligible to win the prize. Congratulations to "The Rhody Turnstones"! Otherwise known as Patrick Felker, Sam Miller, and Liam Corcoran. These young URI guys talked a big game and they backed it up, coming in with impressive totals of 97 species and 119 points! Second place went to "The Roadrunners", Joel, Matthew, and Jonathan Eckerson. This team came in with 97 species as well for a total of 115 points! Next up in third place were "FOYs II Wren", Mark Pagliarini, Teddy Miller, and Matt Zucconi. They tallied 90 species for 102 points! Well done for our top three teams as well as the other participating teams. (One common theme. all members of the top three teams were under the age of 30, hmmmm). Next year the older folks will have to represent better! There were some great team names; "No Egrets", "The Vagrants", "The Uncommon Cuckoos", "Gansett Gannets", "The Lame Ducks", and "The Bradleys". We hope that a good time was had by all and it is our intention that this competition will grow and thrive moving into the future.
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A few interesting facts from the competition |
- The total number of species seen by all teams combined was 138!
- 38 species were seen by all nine teams (including 12 species of waterfowl) - The following species were seen by only one team: cackling goose, Barrow's goldeneye, Virginia rail, purple sandpiper (!), greater yellowlegs (!), thick-billed murre, Iceland gull, black-headed gull (!), red-headed woodpecker, brown thrasher, American pipit, rusty blackbird, pine warbler, and prairie warbler - These species were the biggest misses of the day: snow goose, black-bellied plover, pileated woodpecker, American kestrel, palm warbler, chipping sparrow, white-crowned sparrow |