I’m standing by a crane, the smell of industrial smoke wafting through the air; a fierce cold breeze carries stinging flakes of snow onto my face. My stomach is rumbling, my ears are nearly totally frozen from the wind and cold. Before me is a tunnel with a clearly marked sign: an image of a pedestrian crossed out: вход запрещён (no entry). An unfamiliar woman approaches me: молодой человек (young man), she says вы идете куда? (where are you going). I barely have the strength to open my mouth, and she proceeds to explain that I can reach the ships by passing the tunnel, through which walking is prohibited. I thank her, and turn around.

This anecdote immediately raises the question: what was I doing? Well  this particular day is May 4, or Star Wars day (May the 4^th be with you), but more importantly here this year it was also the Global Big Day. The Global Big Day of what, you may ask. This is the Global Big Day of birding. This still may not make much sense, so for a bit of context, birders have an obsession with big days, which involve trying to find as many bird species as possible in one 24-hour period in a certain region, generally a county or a state. Now, a few years ago some folks at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology had the brilliant idea to expand this concept to the world, a coordinated effort wherein all birders across the globe report bird sightings to a website, eBird and they see how many species they can get in a day. More information can be found about it here. So essentially, as a dedicated (and slightly obsessive) eBirder, I had to report as many species as I could on this day.

I was a bit disappointed when I found out we were going to be in Petersburg on the 4^th, since I knew that would mean we had excursions planned, I didn’t know my way around the city as well, and generally there are just fewer birds in Petersburg since it is farther north. However, in a sense I got lucky; free time was at a premium on this trip, but on this day we at least had until noon free, giving me 5 hours to look for birds if I woke up early. If I could last that long. I dragged myself out of the grimy hostel room at 6:30 in the morning, having only a thin down coat, and as soon as I stepped onto the street I realized how cold it was. The wind was strong and snow was falling, though admittedly not hard. This wasn’t the only problem. We were in the center of Petersburg more or less, which was great for getting to the sights but not so good for birds; the only possible habitat near the hostel was one of the ubiquitous canals, but they have concrete along the edges and thus at best support a couple of Black-headed Gulls, a few terns, and a Mallard. My goal was to reach the ocean.

I started to walk down the nearly-deserted wide boulevards of Saint Petersburg, briskly to stay warm and because there were no birds around to see. I tried a spot along the Neva that looked promising in the map, but only found a House Sparrow and some pigeons, and then headed towards the ocean. I didn’t quite realize that I was going to a shipyard. Upon reaching the above-mentioned tunnel, I realized that this was futile, and had to backtrack.

My backup was a place called Ekaterinahof, which looked like it might at least have a few trees (as opposed to in  Moscow, trees seem to be quite rare in Petersburg). Ekaterinahof was not at all like Peterhof, which was an estate of Peter the Great on the Baltic Sea, but rather like an ordinary city park. I roamed there for a little while and found some of the usual urban park birds as well as a drake Eurasian Wigeon, and at a nearby canal I located a couple of the standard Petersburg terns (eBird checklists here and here). Although better than the industrial hell I had just left, it was far from exciting, and I was very cold, so quickly retreated into a Teremok, which is a fast-food Russian cafe of bliny and then returned to the hostel with an hour and a half to spare.

The morning wasn’t a total failure, however. I did manage to stumble upon a couple of Petersburg landmarks in my roaming, including the Narva Triumphal Arch, built in 1814 to commemorate the victory over Napoleon; and the Trinity Church, which we had seen from a distance, but not up close. It was certainly better than sitting around the hostel all morning. Plus,  I did end the day with 24 species, which is 24 more than anyone else reported in Saint Petersburg on this Global Big Day.

Note: For the record, the Black-headed Gull and Eurasian Wigeon pictures were not taken in St. Petersburg. The Black-headed Gull is from Moscow and the Wigeon is from Iceland. However, the birds I saw on this day  looked the same as these birds, just they were less cooperative for pictures.