World Bird Cup – Final!!

Spoon-billed Sandpiper breeding plumage in the hand - Weiting Liu on Flickr

by Gunnar on January 2, 2012 · 2 comments

in Competitions and Contests.

Surprise Semifinal

It was a total surprise that Philippine Eagle would be able to resist the popular Spoon-billed Sandpiper. It could be that the Spoonie supporters were to busy celebrating Christmas and New Year, and simply did not have time to vote.  I checked the results at midnight on the 31st of December, 2011 and the Philippine Eagle was leading with only 2 votes.   Later the lead was much larger, but the game was already over.

Philippine Eagle by Voltaire Malazarte

Unfortunately, with this free poll plugin to WordPress there is no way to stop the voting, so apparently it is still possible to vote in the semifinals. But it won’t do any good now. Philippine Eagle is in the final.

The other semifinal between Marvelous Spatuletail and Harpy Eagle was also very close to start with. Harpy started out well with a small lead, but in the end Marvelous Spatuletail turned the game and won comfortably.

Marvelous Spatuletail vs Philippine Eagle

Marvelous Spatuletail at a lek by Roger Ahlman (used with permisson)Thus in the final we have two endemic birds for Peru and the Philippines.  If you want to see either you have to go to these countries, both which have many endemic and great birds to offer. I am fortunate to live in Peru, so I have seen the Marvelous Spatuletail many times.  My company arranges several trips to see it every year.  Personally, I am keen to see the Philippine Eagle in 2013. Let me know if you want to join me.

Third place game – Harpy Eagle vs Spoon-billed Sandpiper.

Harpy Eagle captive bird at Parque Zoobotânico Getúlio Vargas - Salvador - Bahia - Brasil Photo: Ricardo Koehn

While it is OK for Peruvians and Philippinos promoting “their bird” to in-country birders, I’d prefer not making it a nationalistic campaign in these countries.  So like previous games we shall have a control.  Let’s have a match for third place between Harpy Eagle and Spoon-billed Sandpipers. I am sure real birders would vote in both games. If the final get  more votes than the game for third place the extra number of votes will be subtracted from the winning finalist.  Strange policies, I guess, but necessary to make it a fair game.  What do you think? May the best bird win.

Also check the short documentary about the WWT expeditions to Chukotka in June 2011 in the video box in the upper right.

The  games will end at midnight Peruvian time (-5H GMT) on Jan 7. 2012

Previous entries in the Bird World Cup

If you just checked in on this fun contest, here are the previous posts.

PHILIPPINE EAGLE BY VOLTAIRE MALAZARTE ON FLICKR, HARPY EAGLE USED BY PERMISSION FROM RICARDO KUEHN ON FLICKR, MARVELOUS SPATULETAIL BY ROGER AHLMAN WITH PERMISSION and SPOON-BILLED SANDPIPER BY WEITING LIU ON FLICKR

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Tagged as: best bird of the world, Bird World Cup, Gunnar Engblom, Harpy Eagle, Marvelous Spatuletail, Peru, Philippine Eagle, Philippines, Spoon-billed Sandpiper

Article by Gunnar Engblom

Gunnar Engblom, who was born in Sweden and lives in Peru, is BirdingBlogs.com's webmaster. He is a birder, runner, post-punkrocker and blogger and he is especially keen on social media for birders - which is how this project started in the first place. Gunnar Engblom organizes birding tours in Peru and the Neotropics with Kolibri Expeditions. Gunnar is passionate about new Peru tours that support community based ecotourism and conservation and has initiated several project this way. Gunnar blogs on his own blog - A birding blog from Peru

Gunnar has written 101 awesome articles for us.

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  • http://alpinebirds.blogspot.com DaleForbes

    looking forward to the complete results as a “the absolute best birds in the world” post!

  • Neil

    Filipinos not Philippinos. Cheers.

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