What's the Deal With Lists?

List, Parque Edwardo VII

Many people who enjoy birds keep lists. Most keep a life list. Others keep all kinds of lists (patch list, county list, etc.) Why list?

First, some birders do not keep lists. They feel that focusing on listing interferes with enjoying the birds because you are recording your sighting instead of truly looking at and absorbing the experience. And that can happen, although I don't think listing and observation are mutually exclusive.

For those who list, there are various reasons.

• Competition. Having large life lists can be a big deal and people can become competitive. And yes, there are birding competitions, both formal and informal. If you haven't seen it, watch The Big Year. It's a comedy, and most birding people do find it funny. My husband, who has little interest in birds, didn't find it funny at all. He just didn't get some of the jokes. People do engage in big years. I followed the blog of a person doing an ABA-area big year (The ABA area is the 49 continental United States, the Hawaiian Islands, Canada, the French islands of St. Pierre et Miquelon, and adjacent waters to a distance of 200 miles from land or half the distance to a neighboring country, whichever is less.. Excluded by these boundaries are Bermuda, The Bahamas, and Greenland.) It wasn't a formal competition, but he was trying to see the most birds he could in a year in the area he selected and compare it to others who did the same thing in previous years. I also had an acquaintance who did a Texas big year. Big years are expensive projects. There are also Big Days (we used to do one of these as a fundraiser for Wild Bird Rescue), which is the number of birds you can find between midnight and 11:59 PM on a given day. I participate with the Wichita Wingmen in the Great Texas Birding Classic each year, which raises money for Texas Parks and Wildlife Conservation Grants. And yes, the focus is on the quantity, not the quality, of observations.
• Contributing to our knowledge of birds. We submit lists for the Christmas Bird Count and the Great Backyard Bird Count, for example. I also submit checklists to eBird when I go birding on my own (if you see a list of birds in a blog post, that list, which the specific numbers of each bird seen, is being submitted to eBird). Over time, lists submitted by many people in many locations, adds to our knowledge of bird populations and ranges.
• Memories. I like to look back at my lists to remember places I have been. For example, the illustration at the top of this post comes from eBird. When I visited my son in Lisbon, Portugal earlier this year, we visited Parque Edwardo VII. Although I didn't go with the express purpose of watching birds, I did see some and recorded them. Now, when I look at the list, I can revisit the area in my mind.

My husband finds the whole listing process humorous, although he does help me. I had him out with me looking for a Whooping Crane which had been reported in Wichita County a few years ago. Looking at my life list on eBird, I found it on January 1, 2011. Once I explained what a "lifer" was, he asks me when I go on trips if I found a lifer, because he knows it's a big deal. And when we travel together by car (because he does not fly), he'll help me keep track of counties, since I count by county in Texas (Texas Century Club).

Listing can be a great way to add to your enjoyment of birds, as long as it doesn't become the be-all and end-all of your experience.

Good birding!

Great Texas Birding Classic Underway

2016 Wichita Wingmen in front of the Jenny at the Wichita Falls airport

Chuck Thueson, Dianne Thueson, Penny Miller, Sue King, Warren King (L to R)

Last year I participated for the first time ever in the Great Texas Birding Classic with Sue and Warren King and Chuck Thueson as part of the Wichita Wingmen team. Dianne Thueson, was supposed to drive for us last year, but was unable to go. She is back in the driver's seat for tomorrow's event. We had a good day last year, but not great. However, we won 1st place in our region/event.

The Great Texas Birding Classis is a competitive birding event with different types of competitions. The event raises money for Texas Parks and Wildlife Conservation Grants.

This year, the Wichita Wingmen will be competing tomorrow, Wednesday, April 26. We are once again taking part in the big day portion of the competition. This is a 24-hour birding marathon, although truthfully, we are not going to be out the entire 24 hours.

There are four teams competing in our region this year. Locally, the Rolling Plains Texas Master Naturalist chapter sponsored a team to compete against ours (although most of us are members of the chapter as well.) That team has already done their big day. They are keeping mum about their total count, but I know they got some good birds (like a bald eagle). One of the other teams competing is located in College Station (yes, that's in the same region).They have had excellent counts in the past (over 100), so I expect some problems from that quarter. It is expected to be a little cool and windy tomorrow, with a chance of rain. I am not overly concerned with the temperatures, but the wind could be a problem. The rain will be an issue only if it is a hard rain. But we are committed at this point, so we are going, no matter the weather.

You can keep up with us throughout the day. I will be making the occasional post about the birds seen on @birdwithpenny using the hashtag #gtbc17--they will feed to the twitter feed on this blog as well as to my personal Facebook page. I'll post an update later after I get the official species count from Sue. Last year we had a song sparrow that the GTBC wouldn't count because it wasn't "supposed" to be in our area in May. We didn't have a picture to prove it, so we didn't get to count it. Sparrows don't often sit still for a photo op. I saw a song sparrow just last weekend, do perhaps we'll get a picture this time.

Wish us luck!

Good birding!

Wichita Wingmen Take Flight May 2

L to R: Chuck and Dianne Theuson, Penny Miller, Sue and Warren King

The Wichita Wingmen will take flight on Monday, May 2, competing in the Great Texas Birding Classic. This competitive event raises money for Texas Parks and Wildlife Conservation Grants.

It's probably fairly obvious where the name came from. We wanted to acknowledge both Wichita Falls and Sheppard AFB, while sounding "birdy." Since this is a Texas event, we don't have to worry about people confusing us for Wichita, Kansas. I am not sure why the locals call Wichita Falls, "Wichita," but they do.

Here we are, at the Wichita Falls Regional Airport, in front of the Jenny. We also had a photo in front of the trainer aircraft from Sheppard AFB.

The area we are competing in is the Prairie and Pineywoods West. We have 24 hours to locate as many species of birds as possible, from midnight to midnight, May 2. We cannot possibly cover this entire region (bordered by Wilbarger county to the west, Grayson to the east and Fayette to the south) thoroughly in this 24 hours, so we have chosen some specific areas with a few alternates that we feel we can do in that time. We have tried to choose different habitat types in the attempt to get as many birds as possible. We'll be sticking primarily to the northern half of our region.

I'll be tweeting throughout the day. You can follow at @birdwithpenny or watch the Twitter feed on this blog. Posts will also filter to my personal Facebook page for those who are connected. If you want to get updates on all of the teams, search for #GTBC16 on Twitter. The competition runs a month. As always, our goal is 100 species. If the weather cooperates, we may be able to hit that number. It is migration season and since we are including Hagerman NWR in our day, there are some distinctly different species there than here. We're hoping for little to no wind, which is an iffy proposition in our area. But if the weather forecast holds, we should have a great day.

Good birding!