Birds Aplenty at SVT Big Sit

Posted
Wednesday, June 4, 2025 - 01:06 PM
American goldfinch, eastern kingbird, and eastern bluebird were all observed during the Big Sit
American goldfinch, eastern kingbird, and eastern bluebird were just three of the 70 species we spotted.
We held the Big Sit behind the Barn at Wolbach Farm. Photo by SVT Staff.
Attendees gathered behind the Barn at Wolbach Farm for our first-ever Big Sit.
We tallied our Big Sit sightings throughout the day. Photo by SVT Staff.
Every time we spotted a new species, we added it the running list. We spotted our last species at 8:00 p.m., just as the Big Sit ended!

Our first Big Sit was a Big Success!

On Sunday, June 1, SVT and our partners at Boxborough Birders and the Boston Birding Festival invited the public to join us for a Big Sit Birdwatching Event at Wolbach Farm. Around 40 people stopped by throughout the day, and we managed to stay relatively dry despite the rain. 

Altogether we counted 70 distinct species from a beautiful vantage point behind our barn. Our sightings included a very vocal blue-winged warbler, several chimney swifts acting as nature's bug repellent, and a common nighthawk that appeared as the event ended at 8:00 p.m. We also saw two rare species, a black vulture soaring high above us and an American bittern flying over the Sudbury River.

SVT's Mike Perrin documented the birds observed and compiled the data into eBird, an app created by Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Mike's list can be found at https://ebird.org/tripreport/380405, and we'll also post images on SVT's Facebook and Instagram pages. 

If you attended the event and have photos you are willing to share, please send them to Sally Hild at [email protected]. (Please be sure to use Big Sit Photos as the subject line.)

Thank you to Athina Education for providing vintage and used books for participants to browse, and thanks also to everyone who participated!

A traditional “Big Sit” is a full 24 hours of stationary birding within a 17-ft diameter circle. We bent the rules a bit and counted birds over 10 hours spread across two sessions (5:00 a.m. to noon, and 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.), and we also sent a few birders into the wooded section of the trail at Wolbach Farm. The Big Sit was not only an opportunity to connect with Metrowest residents interested in birds, but also an opportunity to create a baseline of species using the Wolbach property.