| Summary: | Social aspects of birding have been rarely studied and birders are not a homogenous group. Different subcultures have been identified and addressed by the concepts of ‘birding specialization’ and ‘birding motivations’. We investigated social aspects of birding in combination with demographic variables and a special focus on a Big Day (aka birdathon). A Big Day is a competitive event where teams compete for the highest day total of species seen within 24 h. In our study, we compared participants of a regular Big Day in Germany with a group of non-participants drawn from the same survey sample. One hundred and seventy-eight of the investigated 577 respondents have participated in the event. Participants were significantly younger than other respondents. Gender (about 28% women) showed no significant relationship with the participation in a Big Day. Age, specialization (skill/knowledge), and motivations (social and reputation) predicted participation. Unexpectedly, achievement and competition motivation had no significant impact on the participation in a Big Day. Moreover, we found that Big Day participants more often volunteered in monitoring programs and in data collection for citizen science projects. Against the expectations, participants of a Big Day are not mainly an achievement/competition-oriented group, they rather seem to be interested in social relations. Thus, Big Days should be considered as a valuable tool to engage people in citizen science and raise awareness for nature, rather than neglecting them as a simple sports event for twitchers.
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