365 eBird Checklists Challenge and 2018 Highlights

Happy New Year!

I’m usually pretty excited for the new year because I get to start my year list over. All of the common birds like the cardinals, robins, and starlings become really exciting again because I have to list them all over again.

The past couple of years I’ve been a little lax in keeping up with my lists, but I want to do better for 2019. I want to do the eBird checklist a day challenge. Hopefully, this is something I can keep up through the year. My past years goal have been 200 species for the year. It might be an easy task for some, but I just haven’t been able to do it yet. Maybe I need to travel more, we’ll see...

2018 Year of Birding

2018 was a great year for birds for me. I met a lot of great people, picked up a bunch of lifers, and learned a lot. I wanted to list some of my highlights and stats of 2018 below.

1. 157 species, 32 life birds

   I moved to the Eastern Shore of Virginia and I barely did any coastal birding since I started listing, that’s why I had such a big spike in life birds this year.

2. I got to lead a few groups as an official birding guide.

3. Highlight bird of the year: Loggerhead Shrike (lifer)

   I’ve chased Loggerhead Shrikes for a few years by looking at eBird checklists and going off of tips on hotspots of where to look. It just didn’t happen for me. 2018 was finally the year for me. Special thanks to Mike for giving me the heads up about it, to Shayla for driving and spotting it, to that birding couple we saw on the trail, and to all of my participants on that birding trip.

4. Highlight bird of the year: Brant (lifer)

   Brants are fairly common in my area now, at the right time of year, but I just wasn’t looking in the right spots. My spirits were a little low at this time of the year. This day brought me back up in a lot of ways. Special thanks to Jim for the tip on where to find the Brants and for the amazing carving and to Paige for driving, spotting the Brants, and birding with me that day.

Thank you to everyone that made 2018, the year of the bird, great. I appreciate all of my friends, participants, and birders that I’ve met out in the field. I hope 2019 brings you all some awesome experiences.

Happy Birding!