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2012 Birding Reports
In 2012, I’m once again keeping track of how many different species of birds I can see. I plan to write a report for each day that I see at least one new species for the year, and there may be some extra reports too, when called for. I have several trips to California planned this year, a 24 day trip to Southeast Texas, and a trip to Hawaii in October or November. In addition, I plan to do a lot more birding here in Washington State this year.
Last year I saw a total of 424 species, which blew away my original goal of 275. Of those 424 in 2011, 118 of them were lifers – that is, bird species I saw for the first time in my life. The original goal on lifers had been 70. I think I am much better now at estimating what I might see, based on what I learned last year, and my goal for 2012 is 428 species, of which 92 are expected to be lifers. Those numbers are based on a spreadsheet I constructed, in which I estimated my chances of seeing each individual species.
My reports will be compiled into monthly web pages, and the link to each month is below. Note that when I first see a species and add it to my yearly list, the name of the species will be shown in ALL CAPS.
Texas trip warblers:
I’m planning a 25 day trip to East Texas in April and May, and one of the big features of that trip for me will be Eastern warblers. Since I have only done a little birding in the East, most will be new for me. There are potentially 37 species of warbler that I could see on the trip, of which 26 would be lifers for me (that is, I haven’t ever seen those species). Going into the trip, I have seen only 3 of those species this year. In preparation, I’m trying to learn as many of them as possible. To make matters more complicated, the males and the females are different in some of the species. I’ve accumulated a set of pictures from the web, to help me learn them. Here is a gallery of the possible 37 species of warblers that I might see on the Texas trip:
http://barry15.com/2012_Birding_Reports/Warblers/index.html
Click on a thumbnail to see a larger version, and then you can advance using the arrows.
Here are my Reports for the year, by month. Warning, some of the months have quite large web pages, because of the images.