One of the really fun things about bird watching is making lists. It is a new year and a great time to start a bird list. Keeping a “list” upgrades your birdwatching experience from a passive activity to a game where you keep score. A bird list is simply a list of the birds you see. It can be for a specific time period, like a Big Day or Big Month. The recent movie “The Big Year” is about counting the greatest number of species in a calendar year. Or the list could be for a geographic area, such as a state or county. It could also be a combination of both, and it can be competitive or could be just for you.
I get tired just thinking about all those lists, but I do enjoy keeping a yard list. My “yard list” shows each species I have seen from my yard and is recorded in a birding journal. If I can see or hear it from my yard it counts. At our old house, Nancy and I had over 100 species on the yard list. Not bad for a suburban yard! Our new house list is still a work in progress. It will take some time and a lot of looking to reach the 100 mark again. That is part of the game - and part of the fun! That is also one of the reasons I was so excited the other day when we saw a Brown Creeper for the first time in this yard. Another bird to add to the growing list.
I am a big fan of the yard list, and also of making a trip list when we travel. Both lists are easy to do and certainly add to the enjoyment of bird watching. If I keep working at it, my yard list may someday be as large as Nancy’s Honey Do List!
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