A little more about the Bloggerhead Kingbirds

The Superbowl of Birding is only four days away... and in three days, that juggernaut of birding talent - collectively known as the Bloggerhead Kingbirds will assemble again for some hardcore competitive birding in the wintry wild of New England.  The members of this year's all-star team will likely be familiar to you.  They are, in no particular order:
Corey of 10000 Birds
Nate of the Drinking Bird (and the Nature Blog Network)
John from DC Birding Blog
Andrew, the Birding Dude
Mike from the Feather and the Flower
(And, of course, your humble host)

A little history on the team.  I'd previously been competing in the Superbowl of Birding with a group of friends for several years, and although we'd had a deliriously good time, for a number of different reason we weren't able to pull together another team.  I knew that I wanted to keep competing and decided that I wanted to captain my own team.  It would not have been a difficult task to get some local friends together to compete (I've got a few friends - blogging and otherwise that I'm pretty sure I could've convinced to join me), but I decided that instead, I wanted to try to bring together some on-line nature bloggers from outside of New England.  This served a number of reasons but first and foremost, I thought it would provide a great vehicle to get to meet people that I'd only known in the on-line universe.  I expected that if we got along well in the blogosphere, there was a good chance we'd get on well in-person (and I wasn't at all mistaken).  I also thought it would be good exposure for the competition, a good chance to get some out-of-towners here into MA for some birding, and it would make for some great blogging.  I tested the waters by sending an e-mail out to some of my favorite bloggers, and in almost no time at all, I had a number of positive responses with Patrick, Corey, Nate and Quintus having the distinction of being the the first Bloggerhead Kingbirds. Then, the great folks over at Birdorable generously took some ideas that we had, and created a killer logo for us.

Well, we didn't win the competition last year, but frankly I really didn't mind too much.  I had such a great time meeting and birding with this group of guys for the weekend, it was a no-brainer that I'd be doing this again and again.  Honestly, my only regret is that I can't have more teams!  There are so many great bloggers out there that I'd like to meet and compete with.  The team has been a guys-only team so far - and trust me, I don't think I know a single woman that would've enjoyed being in that van full of guys last year!  That observation was made last year too, and there was a bit of talk about forming a blogging gals-only team to give the boys a run for their money, but it hasn't appeared yet.  I just happen to know a female blogger from Essex county that I know would be an excellent captain if the idea should re-surface.  (She knows who she is, and I don't think it would take much to convince her to do it, as she already competes and enjoys it as much as I do - so maybe next year we'll have more than one team of bloggers competing.)  Sound like I'm throwing down a gauntlet? If so, it's only because I know how much fun it is to get a group of bloggers together for the weekend, and I believe this is a case of the more the merrier!

As you would expect with a team of bloggers, anybody that wishes to join us vicariously via the interwebz will be able to do so through a number of media. You can be sure we will all be blogging about it, each with their own take of the day, and written in their own individual style. And we also have some pretty active users of both Facebook and Twitter so even if there isn't a constant stream of invective updates (we are competing after all), there will be at least periodic posts to both, and we'd love to get support and feedback along the way.