Listing Apathy

If you look just to the right on this page, you'll see the little handful of lists I've managed to continue caring about.  The list used to be longer, 20 years or so ago.  At that time I still cared about my North American list, which was probably at about 600 then.  You'll notice that list is nowhere to be seen.  I stopped caring about that one a long time ago.

My Louisiana list has been on 399 for a while now, back since last December.  It only got to 399 because Michael Seymour found a Mountain Plover and I found out that nobody had gotten good photos of it yet.  I knew it'd be a shame to let a first state record get lost because of lack of documentation, so I went to help out. Honestly though, as cool as that bird was and as good as it was to help make sure it got to the state list, I was disappointed to leave my CBC territory for it. 398 is just as good as 399.

Now there are 3 Brown Boobies that birders have staked out near Lake Charles. Somehow none of the pelagic trips I've gone on have turned one of those up, and even a Florida Keys trip failed to produce them in regular spots.  Brown Booby would be a lifer for me, and number 400 for my state list.  However, I really can't bring myself to care.  I don't plan to go see them.

We all have borrowed birds on our lists.  To get to 400 in Louisiana you have to have about 20-30 of them. If you don't have a yard, you've probably borrowed someone's Broad-tailed, Calliope, Anna's, or Broad-billed hummers.  Unless you're one of a lucky handful, you might've borrowed Greater Flamingo, Mountain Bluebird, Tropical and Couch's Kingbird, Cassin's Sparrow, Red Crossbill, Gray Flycatcher, Sage Thrasher, Harris's Hawk, Lark Bunting, Sulphur-bellied Flycatcher, Fork-tailed Flycatcher, Iceland Gull, Yellow-green Vireo, Chestnut-collared Longspur. Those are just some of the chaseable birds of the past decade.  Go back another decade, and another, and your borrowed list inevitably grows.  Borrowed birds are the difference between a list in the 380's and one at 400.

I guess I'm just not interested in borrowing birds anymore.          

Once, I actively avoided chasing birds.  A Rock Wren was a few miles away for most of a winter.  I passed. A Painted Redstart was in a woodlot along the way to the coast for a winter.  I passed--literally--many times that winter on the way to the coast.  If I counted up all the birds I've passed on, I'm guessing they'd bring me to 410.  I can't think of many birds I really chased in the classic sense, frantically racing down the highway.  Black-tailed Godwit, yes.  Blue-throated Hummingbird, yes, and Northern Wheatear before that. I really wanted to see the Greater Flamingo, too.  Many of the borrowed birds on my list are only there because I was invited along for the ride: King Eider, Purple Sandpiper, Mangrove Cuckoo, Red-throated Loon...

Nowadays, I guess I only passively avoid chasing birds.  I just don't find it very exciting:  Show up.  See bird. e-Bird. Tick total up one number.  Watch name climb list.

I'm not knocking it for others, but for me, it doesn't live up to the excitement of lucking onto a new bird unexpectedly.  Live long enough, and you'll find it for yourself.  

It's easy to get caught up in the numbers game, hearing someone else's number and trying to catch up or stay ahead.  That's human nature.  It's envy at its finest.  But really, what's the point?  I watch birds for the same reason I fish or hunt.  It gets me out there.  It reminds me that the sky is better than the ceiling.  It relaxes me. It  fills the space in me that religion fills in others.  Mixing competition up with that seems like sacrilege.

Competitive birding makes about as much sense to me as competitive praying.

That opinion might not find favor with everyone, especially folks who chased the mockingbird and chased the rail and chased the sandpiper and found them...right where the latest post said they'd be.  Remember this, though: I'm not knocking it for others.  I'm just saying that birds on a tee aren't for me.  Anyway, how my opinion makes you feel is a function of you, not me.  It's an opinion, not a command to agree.  

So will my listing apathy keep me from 400?  Who knows.  I don't expect to live much longer, so passing up the gimmes might just keep me from it.  But then again, what's it matter?

Winter in the air

With cooler weather coming on, it’s fun to look at past winters and wonder what this one will bring (for the sake of a one word term, I’ll lump fall and winter together under the latter name).  Last winter produced an amazing 4 first state records: Dusky-capped Flycatcher, Pacific Loon, Mountain Plover, and Razorbill.  The winter before was less productive in terms of first state records (only one: Prairie Falcon), but was spectacular in the sheer numbers of rarities, highlighted by a bizarre invasion of Green-tailed Towhees.  That winter also produced second state record Gray Flycatcher and Brewer’s Sparrow.  It was truly a cornucopia, a Blind Pig year when rarities became the norm.   

Looking at this year compared to past years through the end of September, the species counts were as follows:     

2013     358 species

2012     357

2011     365

2010     351

2009       355

By the end of these years, the species counts had climbed from anywhere from 8-16 birds.   

2013     ?

2012     365 

2011     377

2010     367

2009       364

2013 ranks 2^nd highest among the 5 years through September, and it’ll be entertaining to see how high it climbs.  This year has seen one of the nicest batch of rarities ever (the aforementioned Razorbill, plus Iceland Gull, Connecticut Warbler, Fork-tailed Flycatcher, several Black Rails, et cet.), so much so that normally great birds like Townsend’s Warblers, Chestnut-collared Longspur, and Rough-legged Hawk were somewhat eclipsed. 

What will winter 2013 bring?  We’ll see. 

And by the way…some of you wondered about the birds I posted in a recent post.  Here’s a rundown:

Lesser Goldfinches.  They don’t seem like they should be rare, but they are.  The most recent Louisiana record was a bird that spent several months in Sabine Parish in 2011.  It was a lot more colorful than these birds, which might easily escape notice.    

Hooded Oriole.  This would be a nice treat at a hummer feeder on a cold winter day.  Look for the graduated tail feathers, and the longish bill.  In general, any time an oriole shows up in the winter, snap a photo.  

Costa’s Hummingbird.  There aren’t any records for Louisiana, but there should eventually be.  How many poorly seen green and white hummers might have been Costa’s?  Be sure to snap photos of mystery hummers, and pay special attention to the primaries.  Costa's can have tapered wingtips (like a Ruby-throat), but their primaries are all the same width. 

None of these photos were taken in Louisiana, unfortunately.