PETERSBURG, Pa. — A veteran of the Shaver’s Creek Environmental Center Birding Cup has some advice for inexperienced birders: Don’t be intimidated.
The best part of the annual fundraising event is being outside with other birders and “hearing everybody’s stories and sharing with each other” afterward, said Jon Kauffman, whose Mifflin County Mockingbirds team won the cup in both 2022 and 2023. Kauffman, an assistant program director at Shaver’s Creek, has taken part in the event for more than a decade — even flying home once from Idaho to participate.
The 2024 Birding Cup will take place from 7 p.m. May 3 to 7 p.m. May 4.
Birders of all skill levels can participate in the cup, with the goal of identifying as many species as possible in 24 hours. Anyone can join non-competitively as part of the global birding community, while local participants can compete to identify birds in seven central Pennsylvania counties.
Awards are given for most bird species identified in one county, most bird species identified without use of motorized transportation, most bird species identified by a team with fewer than two years of birding experience, and most bird species identified by a two-member team in a single one-mile diameter circle. The Birding Cup goes to the team that identifies the most species.
Last year, 158 birders on 37 teams identified 292 bird species across eight states and three countries.
Kauffman, whose team includes several members of the local Amish community, said his team is planning to look for birds in Huntingdon County this year.
Going somewhere different each year, “that’s the fun of it,” he said. “To me it’s the challenge of finding the perfect route to get every bird that we can possibly get ... and then it rains and your plan’s out the door,” he said.
His advice for less experienced birders is to try to walk as much as possible instead of driving, particularly between daybreak and about 11 a.m.
“If you drive around, you miss a lot of the birds,” he said.
One of Kauffman’s personal goals for the event is to spot a least bittern, a small heron, which he has seen before, but never during the cup.
“They’re very secretive, but they’re around,” he said.
This year, money raised will go to a newly created fund to help Shaver’s Creek remove barriers such as transportation costs that prevent people from accessing and enjoying the center and its programming.
Gifts to the Shaver’s Creek Environmental Center Birding Cup advance the University’s historic land-grant mission to serve and lead. Through philanthropy, alumni and friends are helping students to join the Penn State family and prepare for lifelong success; driving research, outreach and economic development that grow our shared strength and readiness for the future; and increasing the University’s impact for families, patients, and communities across the commonwealth and around the world. Learn more by visiting raise.psu.edu.