Keeping Score: The List Passes 310

We recently added the 310th  bird species to our "Life List", a Wilson's Snipe.

Wilson's Snipe (Gallinago delicata) at San Bernard NWR, Brazoria, TX 12/04/2010.

(For those who are not birders: a "Life List" is a cumulative list of all the bird species seen over one's lifetime - link to our "list").

About three years ago when we became more serious about birding and began to keep a Life List, we also discovered eBird.  Basically, it is an on-line list-keeping database (more about eBird here) from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.   In addition to keeping a personal list, our daily birding "checklists", along with many others, are provided to scientists studying bird distributions. 

As casual bird watchers we have seen a few other species before starting the eBird list.  But, we did not document place and time for these.  So our eBird "Life List" really only includes species seen in the past three years. 


The list grew rather quickly at first with easily seen and readily identified birds.  The first 100 species took only a couple of months, the first 200 about a year.  However, as the "easy" birds have been added, new ones have been added more and more slowly, as you can see in this plot.  

Growth of the number of bird species on our Life List with time.

To add new species, we have had to learn to identify the more elusive birds on our home turf, and/or travel to new localities.
Our total is approximately 30% of the total number of bird species ever reported on eBird for the continental US and Canada including Alaska (the ABA Area), and we are getting close to listing half of the species ever reported for Texas.  (Actually, we have 45.8% - one of the neat statistics that you get on eBird.)

Update: Our 311th species, American Bittern.

American Bittern, San Bernard NWR, Brazoria, TX 12/9/2010

This is normally a rather elusive bird, but we found this one in the open along the Moccasin Pond Auto loop.

Listing can itself become an obsession (to be the subject of another post).  However, we hope that we can avoid this and that  we will continue to see our list as only one aspect of learning more about birds in nature.  

On the Water: "Offshore" Birds

For the past four years, we have spent the summer sailing and living aboard our sailboat on the Maine coast (our sailing blog).  Although we rarely go more than 5 miles from the nearest land, we do get a chance to see some of the more pelagic species around the outer islands like Eastern Egg Rock.

SW End of Eastern Egg Rock, Muscongus Bay, ME

Eastern Egg Rock is a treeless 7-acre island located in outer Muscongus Bay, 6 miles east of New Harbor, ME.  Since 1973 it has been the site of the Audubon Society's "Project Puffin ", which has reestablished a breeding colony of Atlantic Puffins (Fratercula arctica).   In July we sailed by the island, and were lucky to have great conditions for seeing and photographing puffins. 

Atlantic Puffins at Eastern Egg Rock

The reestablishment of a breeding colony of Puffins on Eastern Egg Rock, has been a great success.  But, it has required a large expenditure of hard work over many years.  Habitat destruction continues elsewhere, and restoration efforts such as Project Puffin, valuable as they are, cannot keep pace.

There are a few other unusual pelagic birds we also saw at Eastern Eg Rock, such as this Razorbill (Alca torda) a large Auk.

Razorbill on Eastern Egg Rock, July 2010 (long distance, cropped photo )

Black Guillemots (Cepphus grylle) are also abundant there.   They are relatively small (pigeon sized) and black in breeding plumage, but molt to a white/gray color in the Fall.  Unlike the Puffins and Razorbill, the Guillemots prefer to forage in shallower inshore waters.  It seems to us that they are more numerous this year, especially in more "developed" harbors where we had not seen them before such as Rockland.

Black Guillemot 

They have an interesting way of alternating looking around above the surface for a minute or so, alternating with putting their head under water to look around below the surface.

Black Guillemot looking below.

Wilson's Storm Petrels (Oceanites oceanicus) are also relatively small birds that breed in Antarctica and nearby islands during the southern hemisphere summer (our winter).  They spend the rest of the time at sea coming as far north as Maine in summer, where they are fairly numerous.  At least, we see them nearly every day when we are offshore.

Wilson's Storm Petrel showing the distinctive white rump.

Northern Gannets (Morus bassanus) are also often seen when we are offshore.  However, the dark colored immature Gannets seem to be the ones most often seen in the coastal waters we normally travel.   This one (seen near Seguin Island) has nearly molted to the white adult plumage.

Northern Gannet near Seguin Island, ME

 In the bays and harbors, we commonly see many other water birds, such as cormorants, various ducks and geese, herons, Ospreys, and quite often Bald Eagles.   I'll show some of them in other posts.