The 5MR Begins
After a thoroughly enjoyable Christmas and New Year's in Michigan, it was back to the DC area the first week of January to start my spring semester. I'd been back in the US for 5 months at that point, and the midwinter birding boredom was very much threatening to be a thing. Thankfully, there was a new craze in the birding community to distract me: the 5MR Challenge , thought up by Jen Sanford , one of my favorite birding bloggers. The goal of the 5MR challenge is to see as many birds as possible within a five-mile radius of one's house, which for me as a birder with no car and time constraints was the ideal sort of challenge. My 5MR circle (seen here along with a list of what I've seen this year so far) probably holds the record for number of administrative regions covered, as it includes parts of Arlington, Alexandria, Falls Church, and Fairfax Counties in Virginia, as well as about a third of Washington DC and a small part of Prince Ge...