It was 2020… Need I say anything more? The concern over Covid exposure changed my focus from large statebirding trips, or even travelling to chase a single new statebird a short distance away, to birding quite locally. Don’t get me wrong - exploring local birding spots was still fun, especially as I continued to learn more about my new area in western NC. Plus I found a number of really nice birds nearby. But my first love continues to be adding birds to my state (and province) lists. And with my recent retirement I had plenty of time to take a lot of short- and longer-distance trips. But all of that will have to wait till we can return to more normal times.
There were still some nice highlights in my nearly daily
birding trips. All results were entered
in eBird, with 672 checklists entered in 2020.
Key highlights are summarized below.
Statebirds
The year started off quite well with a January trip to the
SC and NC coasts in conjunction with the annual winter meeting of the Carolina
Bird Club. I added 8 in NC and 9 in SC
including a number of rarities. But then
Covid hit, eliminating any trip longer than 90 minutes or so. I ended up adding 75 birds to my state and province
lists during the year to bring my “total ticks” tally to 14,849. (Total ticks is the sum of my state and
province lists.) I saw new birds in just
3 states – 35 in NC, 29 in SC, and 1 in GA. Key NC additions among birds I found – Pacific
Loon on the coast, Lapland Longspur, Wilson’s Phalarope, and Common Redpoll. Notable SC additions were the 2nd state
record of Western Meadowlark, a rare Bullock’s Oriole at a feeder on the coast,
and I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to be one of
the few to see the first state record of Sage Thrasher. With these 2020 additions, my NC and SC lists
are now my 10th and 11th best state lists.
I also had additions or deletions to 9 other state lists and 1 province
list due to ABA lumps, splits, and changes in how exotics can be counted.
Maps of my state and province lists are inserted below.
Yard Birding
Birding in my yard continues to be amazing – which is
certainly helpful during these Covid times when travel is limited. By the end of the year my yard list was at
141 in just 16 months, adding 45 during the year. I’m now up to 31 species of warblers, with
notable additions being a singing Louisiana Waterthrush in August (there is no water
nearby), and a Wilson’s Warbler at my feeder in December. I was also lucky enough to find a couple
rarities in the yard. First and foremost
was a White-winged Dove that called briefly for 3 days starting on 6/8 –
unfortunately I was never able to see it.
Then came a migrant Dickcissel on 9/7, a flyover pair of Evening
Grosbeaks on 11/8, and then a Selasphorus, sp. hummingbird (most likely a
Rufous) feeding on camellia flowers in the yard for 2 days on 11/30-12/1.
On 8/25/20, my 1-year anniversary of moving to NC, I put
together a wish list of 44 potential new birds for the yard. Since then, I’ve seen 9 of these targets in
the yard, and 2 others that weren’t even on my radar screen.
County Listing
I never was into county listing before I moved to NC. But with such limited travel opportunities
during these Covid times, county listing gives you another thing to look
forward to. Plus many local birders are
not only into county listing, but county year listing as well. It’s contagious! I especially focused on my home county of
Henderson, where I finished with the 2nd highest count this year, even though I
wasn’t bitten by the county listing bug till well into the year. I’m also tracking county lists in 4 other NC
counties and 2 in SC. And my county
listing trips yielded some good birds as well – the first eBird records of Red
Crossbill in Rutherford County and Forster’s Tern in Polk County.
Life List
2020 was the second year in a row that I didn’t see a new species
for my life lists – the only 2 years in my 50+ years of birding without seeing
a new species. Not coincidentally, these
past 2 years were the only recent years when I haven’t taken any significant
birding trips. But there were 3
revisions to ABA’s official lists in 2020 from which I netted 1 new life bird –
I lost Northwestern Crow when it was lumped with American Crow, added one when
Mexican Duck was split from Mallard, and added another when Red-vented Bulbul
was determined to be countable based on an introduced population in Houston,
TX. That gives me 759 in the ABA
Continental and US regions, and 739 in the Lower 48.
Here’s to 2021 and Beyond
I would still like to pursue my life-long goal of seeing at
least half of the total species of each state in the Lower 48 (that was the old
ABA threshold to be able to report your state total). I’ve exceeded that threshold in 46 states –
only MT and OR remain. I had planned a summer
trip to MT and ID in 2019 but had to cancel to prepare for our move to NC. And I hoped to do that same trip again in
2020 but Covid got in the way. Now it’s
looking like it could be iffy in summer 2021 as well. I’d also like to reach 15,000 total ticks – just
151 to go. In order to reach that goal,
I’d need more than just trips to MT and OR.
The next low hanging fruit are Manitoba and Saskatchewan where my province
lists are less than 50 in each case. Certainly
doable once I can get back on the road and into the air.
Then I hope to pursue more statebirds in the region in
coastal NC, SC and VA, as well as northern GA, eastern TN, and southwestern
VA. There were a dizzying number of
rarities in the region at the end of 2020 that I just couldn’t head out to
pursue. Not to mention a number of
potential new life birds that would require a plane flight to chase. Most frustrating.
Definitely looking forward to those post-Covid times...
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