The Numbers Game

Like many birders out there, I’m an unapologetic lister. I have a life list of course, in both ABA and Worldwide varieties. A list for my yard, a list for my state, and one musn’t forget the North Carolina Big Year list for the calender year. But perhaps I fine myself deep into the realm of obsession when I point out that I also keep lists within lists. Of course we all know that a big list in and of itself is really more of an indication of time and money more than anything else, and while I may not have lots of either, I do have this little trick to keep things exciting. Allow me to explain.

From within the whole of my ABA area life list, the most important one as far as I’m concerned, I like to break the birds down by year, which is simply the number of life birds I get in a given calender year from within the year list, but also by state/province. For instance, as you might imagine, Missouri, the state in which I grew up and spent my formative birding years, leads all other life bird bearing states by a wide margin. Since I began listing, out of the sum total of ABA area life birds, 158 of those lifers have been within the boundaries of the Show Me State. Now my Missouri state list would obviously be a tad higher than that, as those 158 would be supplemented by birds I saw for the first time in other states, but for “life birds” seen in a given state, Missouri is far and away the tops.

Now why, you may be asking, is such naval-gazing minutia worthy of an entire blog post? Excellent question, dear reader. You see, I’m on the verge of a major shake-up in my Life Birds by state/province tally. Next week I’m coming up on the four year anniversary of my move to North Carolina. I originally made the switch here to be closer to the woman who is now my wife, so I guess you could say the transition worked out pretty well. It was pretty good from the bird end of things as well, as is evidenced by the rapid rise North Carolina has made in the “life birds by state” list.

For the longest time, my 1-2-3 sat #1 Missouri (cause I lived there), #2 Arizona (remarkably in only a couple weeks), and #3 Texas (Lower Rio Grande, man). But with the recent addition of Bachman’s Sparrow, North Carolina has risen to a tie with Texas for number of life birds seen at 65, having long since blown away Florida and Kansas. The next lifer I pick up in North Carolina will do the previously unthinkable and pass Texas, putting it all alone in the top three.

So what will that bird be? Ruffed Grouse or Alder Flycatcher out west? Greater Shearwater or Leach’s Storm-Petrel off shore? Or something completely wild like the Shiny Cowbird that showed up ten miles away just a week ago and was never refound. Who knows? But it will be a small milestone of sorts. One whose celebration probably cements my reputation as a complete geek. But I just gotta be me, I’m looking forward to it.