The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has done it again.

No, they have not found another "extinct" bird (as they did in 2004 by rediscovering the ivory-billed woodpecker), but they did beat out 50 other teams of birders to win the 2006 World Series of Birding.

Team Sapsucker took home the 2006 Urner-Stone Cup by identifying 229 bird species in a 24-hour period (midnight to midnight) throughout New Jersey, beating the runner-up team, the Pennsylvania Monitors (sponsored by the Second Pennsylvania Breeding Bird Atlas), by 10 species. The Delaware Valley Ornithological Club team, Cornell's archrivals and this year's third-place finisher, holds the all-time record of 231 species.

The 23rd year of the conservation fund-raising event, sponsored by New Jersey's Audubon Society, took place May 13. Team Sapsucker raised $180,000 in pledges, over $780 per bird identified.

"We had a blast," said Ken Rosenberg, longtime team co-captain and director of the lab's conservation science program. "It was a great way to raise money and a great way to spend a Saturday."

Each team consisted of top-notch birders. "To be competitive, you have to know every bird by both sight and sound," said Rosenberg. Roughly half of the entire list of birds identified was heard and not seen, he said, and about 20 to 30 species, including owls and marsh birds, were only heard at night.

Rosenberg said the team spotted some rare birds, including a Western grebe and an Eurasian collared-dove.

For a team to add a bird to its list, all team members must see or hear it. "After someone sees or hears a bird, other team members yell out, 'Got it!'" said Rosenberg. However, each team is allowed 5 percent of their total to be identified by less than the full team, so this year Team Sapsucker was allowed to add 11 species to their list that at least two team members saw or heard.

Other team members included John Fitzpatrick, lab director; Steve Kelling, the lab's director of information science; and Brian Sullivan and Chris Wood, project co-leaders for the lab's eBird, a citizen-science project in which birders update a permanent database with their sightings.

Funds raised will be used to develop Spanish and French versions of the eBird Web site to help expand the program from North America to other parts of the world. A project developed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society, eBird helps birdwatchers, scientists and conservationists learn more about the distributions and movement patterns of birds across North America.