Please join us in congratulating Kristina Pedersen of Denmark – winner of the November 2022 eBird Challenge, sponsored by Carl Zeiss Sports Optics. Kristina’s name was drawn randomly from the 5256 eBirders who submitted at least 30 eligible checklists with eBird Mobile in November. Kristina will receive a new ZEISS Conquest HD 8×42 binocular for her eBirding efforts. Here’s Kristina’s birding story:
In November, I was birding for the Danish Ornithological Society (DOF – BirdLife Denmark) at the Gedser Bird Observatory. My colleagues and I counted the birds passing through Gedser Odde, the Southern most point in Denmark.
Eurasian Kestrel © Kristina Pedersen / Macaulay Library
Gedser Odde is located at a bottleneck for birds migrating south from Scandinavia, and thereby a good place to gather knowledge about the migrating birds’ population and movements. Changes in migration patterns can be related to a series of variables, such as climate change, and we aimed to study these at the station through direct observations and bird-ringing.
Long-tailed Ground-Roller © Kristina Pedersen / Macaulay Library
I have been registering the direct observations on eBird, as I see it important that this information reaches a wider scientific community. I also use eBird frequently on my regular birding trips in other places so I can keep track of what I have seen and where, and also I see the observations as valuable data that should be shared.
I would like to send a thank you to the eBird team from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology for the great work they do for birds, and the Carl Zeiss Sport Optics company for the support.