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My Column: Birder on a Streak

IMG_4224Tenafly's Marc Chelemer has gone birding 948 days in a row. Credit: Photo by Daniel Chelemer.

My latest column for The Record is about Marc Chelemer, an accomplished birder who's on his way to birding 1,000 days in a row. You can read it here:

By Jim Wright

Special to The Record | USA TODAY NETWORK - NEW JERSEY

   Expert birders have always fascinated me, not only with their wealth of knowledge but with their dedication.

   Marc Chelemer of Tenafly is in my local pantheon, and he’s on a hot streak. Barring anything unforeseen circumstances, late next month Marc will have birded 1,000 days in a row. 

   That entails going outside daily to look for birds and record them on eBird, the free app from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology – the folks behind the Merlin app.

   His best day during this streak, which stands at 949 consecutive days, was in May, with 183 species. He and his team were participating in the World Series of Birding, the famous competition to see the most bird species in one day in New Jersey.

     Chelemer says the most unusual bird he’s seen during his streak was one I’d never heard of – a Blyth’s Tragopan. 

    “It’s a difficult-to-see (or even hear) pheasant-type bird of the Himalayas,” Chelemer recalls. “My birding tour group in India in April was incredibly fortunate to see a male perch on a bush briefly and then run across the road. So few birders have ever seen this species that I think it’s got to be the best.”

   Where will he celebrate that 1,000th day in a row next month? “My guess is I’ll be at Forsythe Refuge, Sandy Hook, or Cape May, thrilling to the southbound migration,” Chelemer says. “I see no reason to stop. I think 2,000 days is a fine target.”

   His family takes his mild obsession in stride. “They’ve come to recognize that birding is an integral part of who I am, and always wish me well when I’m heading out the door to try to ‘twitch’ a rarity,” he says. “My wife, who’s an awfully good spotter of birds, lets me know what she’s seen while driving or walking, so it’s rubbed off a bit.”

   Chelemer offers the following advice to aspiring birders: “Not everyone will drive to Cape May and back in a day or drive to Maine and back in a day to see one bird – the Steller’s Sea-Eagle. But anyone can set an inexpensive pair of binoculars by the back window, put up a bird feeder with nyjer seed, and be thrilled when the first American Goldfinch, with its bright yellow and black feathers, flits into view.”

   Chelemer also suggests taking a stroll in a local park and simply listening. 

  “I learned to bird by ear very early on, and hearing a bird is often far easier than seeing it,” he says. “A  forest full of birdsong on a cool summer morning is magical, and one can then take one’s time to try to find the songsters, slowly building up that expertise.”

       The Bird Watcher column appears every other Thursday. Jim’s next book, "The Screech Owl Companion," will be published by Timber Press. Email Jim at [email protected].

Bonus quote:

Marc's other recommendation: Don’t take the Garden State for granted.

   “I might complain to people about New Jersey’s high property taxes, overcrowded roads, and so on,” he says. “But in terms of ease of birding and the variety of habitats that one can explore in under two hours of driving, there’s no state like this one.”

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