Bird Questions - and a Contest!

What is it about the number 100 that many people seem to think is noteworthy? Why is a list of 100 birds, or birding sites, or counties birded or anything, so much more likely to be mentioned than 99 or 101 of the same things?

Although I have been birding and listing bird species seen each year for much of my life, it never occurred to me to tally the number of bird species seen in each county until some of my fellow Carolina Bird Club members began to post their totals sometime in the 90’s., with a stated goal of trying to get 100 species per county. Although most of my relevant data are [Ted Floyd: please note the verb here] probably somewhere in my birding records and I could therefore figure this out for North Carolina, I have not done so (nor have I yet posted all that data to eBird). It’s too much fun to bird, and not so much fun to pore over my old bird notebooks.

When I moved to Texas, I began to keep records of my bird sightings by county as I now do in South Dakota. I figure that if I run out of birds to see in a particular state, I can concentrate on increasing my county lists there. I did not stay in Texas long enough (just about 10 ½ years), to run out of birds, however. New ones just keep arriving there.

This county listing effort requires that I carry a state map that shows the county lines and that every time I cross a county line, I need to restart my bird list for the day and write down everything all over again, even if I have just seen it in the previous county. In this county mode, when I bird with someone else, I am always making them help me keep track of which county we are in. It is a lot of work, but someone has to do it.

While I was in Texas I never spent much time trying to get 100 species in each Texas county, but I did try to maximize the number of birds in each county to whatever level I could bring it. The Texas Ornithological Society, however, has encouraged birders to get 100 species per county by establishing a Century Club, giving birders the goal of seeing 100 species in each of 100 counties (of the 254 counties in Texas). The Century Club web site currently indicates that two birders have reached that goal, one of whom has exceeded it, and another 5 have at least 100 species in each of over 75 counties. There are, however, a few counties in Texas where apparently it is not even possible to get 100 species, ever. The counties may be huge, but there is nothing in them to lure in most birds to winter or breed, and most birds seen are just passing through.

Although I thought the same might be true in at least some of the 67 counties of South Dakota, where I now live, from the records listed on the South Dakota Ornithologists’ Web Site, it appears that over 100 species are possible in even the unpopulated, very dry counties. I expect to keep working on seeing more species in more South Dakota counties. So far, since mid-2011, I have seen over 100 species in each of 10 South Dakota counties.

How does this all relate to big years? Most of my widespread Texas sightings and South Dakota sightings are due to the fact that I did big years in both states. Otherwise, it is unlikely that I would have done so much statewide travelling. It is much easier and less expensive to stay near home, which is what I am mostly doing this year, but it results in fewer county 100 records.

Just last Friday, I finally got to 100 species for the Pennington County big year that I am now doing. Reaching this goal got me wondering how long it took to get to 100 species in my other big years, so today I went back to my web site (www.lynnbarber.com) to do something I love to do – make a table - to compare my previous big years with each other and with this year.

The result, showing the date by which the number of species indicated was seen follows, should you be interested too, is:

Year/Area              Species:    100        200          300          400        500        600       700         TOTAL        100^th bird of year

2003/TX	1/1	1/13	3/22	5/16	n/a	n/a	n/a	485	Sandhill Crane
2005/TX	1/2	1/7	2/5	4/11	8/31	n/a	n/a	522	Green-br. Mango
2008/ABA	1/1	1/9	1/20	2/29	4/21	6/8	10/24	723	White-tailed Hawk
2012/SD	1/30	4/25	5/30	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	350	E. Screech-Owl
2013/Pennington County, SD	4/19	?						??	Lesser Yellowlegs

And now, the CONTEST: The next question for me is, WHEN will I reach 200 species this year in Pennington County? Or will I even get that many in Pennington County? I thought it might be interesting to see if anyone wanted to guess an answer to the first of these questions. In an attempt to motivate YOU to make a guess, I am now announcing a contest. To enter the contest, email me at dalybar AT aol.com your guess of the date on which I will get my 200^th species this year in Pennington County. Don’t post your guess here, but email it to me to keep it secret from others. You may think that you don’t have enough information to hazard such a guess, but you are not alone. I don’t have a clue either. If it turns out that birding is so bad that I don’t even get 200 species this year, the person who guesses the last date will be the winner.

The PRIZE? A signed copy of my book, Extreme Birder: One Woman’s Big Year, sent to you or to someone whom you designate.

Of course, if nobody enters my contest, I’ll get to keep the book, and just let you know the answer to the question of when I reach 200 species when 2013 is over. But it would be much more fun for me to be able to announce a winner. What do you have to lose?

Number 100 this year: LESSER YELLOWLEGS

 

Comments

[Lynn Barber]

I'm delighted to report that I'm actually getting entries in my contest (see blog post above). I will remind people about the contest in 2 weeks. I'm expecting to close off the entry process on/about May 15th. I don't want people entering their guesses when I'm at about 199 species :)

[Jesse Ellis]

I'm honestly very skeptical that it "isn't possible" to get 100 species in each of Texas's counties. It's possible that 100 species have not yet been recorded in each county - with 254 some are guaranteed to be underbirded. But I also bet nearly all of South Dakota's counties are "underbirded" to some degree or another, too. And if you can do it in SD, I'd be stunned if you couldn't do it in Texas.

Go bird new places, folks.