January 21st, 2013

As you may recall, at the end of 2011 Sean and I decided to keep a tally of the number of bird species that each of us could detect at our respective place of work during the 2012 calendar year. I started off my 2012 with American Crow, while Sean began the count with Hairy Woodpecker – and it went fast and furious from that point to the very end. Below are some comparisons and highlights from the year, but the grand totals first… Sean ended 2012 with 103 species!!! While I ended with 111 species!!! It seems wild that we both eclipsed the 100 species mark. I tied my record from the previous year even though I missed detecting some species that I have every year. According to my count, out of the 103 species at Laurel Creek, I had only 73 species in common with Sean. Having similarly-sized properties, yet very different habitats made things even more interesting, and the results show that. Among the many Laurel Creek highlights were PEREGRINE FALCON!, Common Redpoll, Sora, and Barred Owl. For me at Camp Heidelberg they were Snow Goose (1st ever record for the property), Common Raven (2nd record), Common Redpoll, and Hooded Warbler.

Sean ended 2012 with a Barred Owl (awesome!) while on the Christmas Bird count in mid-December, and my final species for the year was a White-crowned Sparrow (missed in the spring) on Oct 25th.

It was a very tight race in 2012 and we both had lots of fun comparing notes and species. At the end of the year when we tallied up our birds we agreed to continue for a 2013 big year! Both of us will be trying to top each other, but also trying to top our 2012 records! It is a great way to have some fun and contribute to citizen science by entering our data into eBird.

2013 Update… Sean has 17 species, and I have 24 species to date!

Good luck in 2013, and happy birding everyone!