In this Super Bowl, the points are for the birds

Members of the Noddies (above), a Vermont youth birding team, hurried along Salisbury Beach yesterday to get a glimpse of a black scoter that one of their teammates spotted during the Mass Audubon Society's Super Bowl of Birding VI. Moriah Post-Kinney (above right) of the Noddies scanned the sky looking to score points for her team. A white-winged crossbill (below left) was worth four points and the dickcissel (below right) was worth five, the highest for any bird. (Globe Staff Photo / Mark Wilson)

It's a different kind of Super Bowl - it lasts 12 hours and teams earn points based on birds sightings, not touchdowns.

Twenty-one teams, with four to seven people per team, ventured to Plum Island at 5 a.m. yesterday to start competing in the Massachusetts Audubon's Super Bowl of Birding VI, an annual bird-sighting competition. They then spread out through Essex County, Mass., and Rockingham County, N.H.

The goal is to spot as many birds as possible - and preferably species that are worth more points. Points are assigned by how rare a species is at this time of year, such as the dickcissel - a bird worth five points because it typically migrates this time of year, according to lead judge Ann Gurka, of Watertown.

Points are totaled at the end of the day.

The event was organized by the Joppa Flats Education Center in Newburyport.

"There are great birds here in the winter and it's the time of year there aren't many bird events going on," said Gurka.

The birds most commonly seen this time of year are Canadian and Arctic birds that winter along the coast, said Gurka. The rarest bird sighted this year was a Thayer's gull, a bird not usually found in this area at all, she said.

Perhaps the biggest challenge for participants yesterday was the frigid weather and strong wind, said Gurka.

"The wind typically keeps the birds lower down, because the birds don't want to venture out in the wind," said Gurka.

The National Weather Service in Taunton said the winds held at 17 miles per hour with gusts up to 30 miles per hour.