Northern Rough-winged Swallow at Arcata Marsh yesterday at 2:35pm. Only 6 more to go to hit 300 for California. Only 9 more for the county to hit 250. I might make it.
Some people look down on listing, but I love it. It's important to acknowledge that listing is more or less a game, even if it is a great way to keep track of birds you've seen, to contribute to our collective knowledge of bird distributions and occurrence patterns, and to inspire personal adventures. The key is to remember to learn the birds, and not think of them solely as a check mark on a list. I feel that I've been able to balance listing with a broader appreciation for nature and birds as a whole. I've studied and even written scientific papers on a handful of bird species and don't feel like listing has been detrimental to my performance as a natural resource scientist. If anything it keeps me outside looking for birds and honing my ID skills. I'm trying to learn my butterflies too. I know many of the large charismatic species, but still need a lot of work with some of the more subtle groups like the skippers, hairstreaks and duskywings.
Current List totals
World Total: 836
North America total 753
ABA total 580
eBird ABA total: 576
Texas: 344
California : 329
Mississippi: 250
ABA area ticks: 2,172
US State lists: 21
Some Selected County Lists
Humboldt County CA: 260
Oktibbeha County, MS: 184
Uvalde County, TX: 150
Noxubee County, MS: 159
Real County, TX: 125
County ticks: ~5,500 (need to add it up again)
County lists: 165
mode county list: 1
median county list: 21
mean 33.57
range 1-260
Some Goals
1,000 World/ 164 to go
800 North America/ 47 to go
600 ABA area birds/ 20 to go
400 Texas species/ 56 to go
400 California Species/ 71 to go
300 Mississippi Species/ 50 to go
150 Tennessee Species/ 24 to go
200 Alabama species/ 94 to go (I just started birding in Alabama in February)
3,000 ABA area ticks/ 828 to go
me
Me and Jill, my wife, at McArthur-burney Falls. There were black swifts behind us.
I'm 27. I'm doing PhD research on birds in pine plantations in Mississippi. I have a Master's Degree in Biology from Humboldt State University in Arcata, California, and I'm currently a PhD student at Mississippi State U. in Starkville, MS.
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